Kazakhstan is one of the most dynamic economies in the world, but most businessmen say growth could be much faster if it was not for the republic’s want of professional personnel. President Nursultan Nazarbayev has appealed to Kazakhs living abroad to return home to help build a prosperous nation state. He has also promised to invest more of Kazakhstan’s huge oil windfall in an education scholarship named Bolashak, training high-quality professionals overseas.

Bolashak, which means The Future in the Kazakh language, was founded in 1993, as the country began building an outward-looking market economy in place of the closed, centrally planned Soviet system. From the start, Bolashak was unashamedly elitist. The goal was to prepare a super- bright generation of professional leaders in the world’s most prestigious institutes of learning.