Kazak Leader Diffuses Student Protest

Monday, 21 February, 2005

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Alim Bekenov

Kazak president Nursultan Nazarabaev last week diffused unprecedented student protests over tuition costs, which had been threatening to escalate into a nationwide action.

Nazarbaev overruled an illegal education ministry decision to break university fee agreements made by around 16 thousand university students, who threatened to strike.

The Kazak leader publicly reprimanded the education minister, Jaksybek Kulekeev, and sacked his deputy, Aiman Abdykadyrova, for the illegal move - breaching a 2003 amendment of a presidential decree on state loans for students issued in 1999.

This was the first time that Nazarbaev has punished high-ranking officials for illegal or wrongful action, a measure of how seriously he viewed the student unrest.

The 1999 decree introduced an interest-free loan system, under which the sum of money the students borrowed would be sufficient to pay for their education. The money to be paid back within 15 years’ of graduation.

The amendment to the decree gave officials the right to increase university fees - and hence require students to take out bigger loans - on a year-by-year basis.

However, the 2003 legislation was not retrospective, meaning that students who’d signed loan contracts prior to the amendment were exempt.

The campus turmoil was triggered a month ago when Kulekeev said costs, and therefore loans, for the new academic year would go up by around 80 per cent – insisting controversially that those students who had taken out loans prior to 2003 would be subject to the increases.

The latter were furious and began holding protests outside the education ministry and university building across the country, declaring the decision to be illegal and demanding that it be revoked.

“Why should I pay them more money?” said one disgruntled student at the journalism faculty at the Eurasian National university. “If they really raised the quality of our education, that would be understandable. But in four years [of study], nothing has changed.”

At the beginning of last week, protest leaders gave the government an ultimatum, saying that unless the problem was solved by December 4 the students would go on strike.

“We do not intend to put up with this unjustified act by the government,” said a statement from the protesters.

Kazak youth have never before threatened such a mass action. In the past, they’ve tended to be rather passive, rarely criticising the authorities.

The seeds of dissent were sewn with the appointment of Kulekeev as education minister a year ago. He angered many students this summer by proposing expensive reforms of the university sector, which would require increasing the cost of higher education.

Student protests at the time apparently prompted the education ministry to back down: it announced that there had been a “misunderstanding” and there would be no increase in tuition fees in the coming years.

But the ministry again announced that it would increase fees a month ago, provoking the latest round of protests.

On November 24, Kulekeev was summoned to appear before parliament where deputies accused him of violating Kazak legislation and the constitution. He denied the charges, provoking further controversy by saying that “in this case the reference to the constitution seems inappropriate to me”.

Usually, Kazak officials making dubious decisions cover themselves by citing the constitution and by extension its guarantor, the president.

“Frequently, official justify illegal actions by saying that everything was agreed upon at the top, with the president,” said parliamentary deputy Sergei Kiselev.

As the parliamentary rebuke and subsequent student strike threat did little to dissuade Kulekeev, Nazarbaev, it seems, had no option but to personally intervene.

The president reprimanded the education minister and sacked his deputy, saying that students should not have to pay for their mistakes.

Alim Bekenov is an independent journalist in Kazakstan.