Three students from the University of Tsukuba studied at Kazakh National University for a short period of 10 to 12 months as program students of the “Multilingual Human Resources Development Program for Central Eurasia Countries” adopted in FY2022.
This program is designed for undergraduate and graduate students, and aims to contribute to the development of multilingual human resources who can work immediately after graduation in industries in Japan and Russian-speaking countries. The host university, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, is a Campus-in-Campus (CiC) partner institution with the University of Tsukuba. During the study abroad period, in addition to learning Russian and Kazakh, students will also be able to take courses (Course Jukebox) shared between CiC partner institutions. In addition, participants received a monthly scholarship of 70,000 yen from the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO).
While in Kazakhstan, the students not only studied Russian and Kazakh intensively in daily classes, but also spent their free time interacting with local teachers and students and honing their skills playing the dombra, a traditional Kazakh instrument, making it clear that they were having a fulfilling stay. There have also been report of student who started learning Russian from scratch and improved to a level where he could comfortably hold everyday conversations by the time they returned home. The one-year stay seems to have greatly contributed to improving the language skills and deepening the understanding of the history and culture of Central Asia.
At the debriefing session and exchange study abroad briefing session held at the University of Tsukuba on Thursday, October 19, 2023, students studying abroad participated online from Kazakhstan and talked about their experiences studying in Kazakhstan. In addition, on Monday, April 22, 2024, a debriefing session on the return of this program was held jointly with the two programs held in Kazakhstan in the spring of 2024.
