Kazakhstan 2012

After years lapse from overseas stint, I was asked to assist the institution’s participation in the A2 Education Fairs in Astana and Almaty, Kazakhstan from 20 – 24^th Sept. On day 1, the Fairs started at 1pm to 8pm venued at the Rixos Presidential Hotel in Astana Central. More than 1,000 students mostly high school leavers turned up for the event. We had engaged a local translator to assist us in communication and interaction with potential students, as majority of Kazakhs/Russian could not speak or understand English language. We had a fruitful discussion with an English Language Centre from Malaysia, the English Language Company (ELC), on how we can ride on their existing recruitment agency for recruiting potential Kazakhs. Students will be having one year of English Language course in KL, tailored towards our Engineering programme before they continue with UTP’s programme.

Further discussion with local university (Al-Farabi National University) on the utilization of Bolashak programme of which with the collaboration, we should be able to utilize the Bolashak via adjunct lecture series, research officers, research grants, post-doc, and other non-degree research/short courses. Bolashak programme is a scholarship which is awarded to high-performing students from Kazakhstan to study overseas all-expenses paid, provided that they return to Kazakhstan to work for at least five years after graduation.

  

We had also a nice dinner hosted by His Excellency Dato' Ahmad Rashidi Azizi, Malaysian Ambassador to the Republic of Kazakhstan at the end of day 1.

  

The A2 Education Fairs in Almaty is even better. We welcomed almost 2000 parents and potential students throughout the 2-day exhibition. Below some more pics that could tell 1001 stories..

Kazakhstan is like 5000 miles away from home but the warm and friendly people of Kazakhs make our visit so welcomed. It was a nice trip altogether..

P/s - lama x haplod lagu neh...