Paper long abstract:

The internationalization of higher education (HEI) is one of the major factors and indicators of the quality of a university's activities, determining its competitiveness at the international level. It has become the significant resource for improving the quality and the top priority in Kazakhstan's educational policy over the past years due to globalization, intensification of international economic, political and cultural contacts and world labor market demands. The paper argues that nowadays the quality of education is determined and evaluated not only through pedagogical and educational parameters, but also through such efficient HEI strategies as accreditation and rating, harmonization of national and global standards, knowledge evaluation, foreign staff and students' involvement, graduates' quality assessment in accordance with the requirements of the labor market.

The aim of the paper is to analyze HEI's current trends, challenges and perspectives, reflected in the institutional policy, and international collaboration with foreign universities. Trends in academic mobility of students and faculty, growth of overseas students in universities, allocation of governmental funding for mobility and emergence of the new forms of internationalization, such as franchising are also examined.

The paper also considers the development of new curricula and study programs in English. I argue that the training of multilingual students and teaching staff and providing educational programs in English are the key factors of universities internationalization and integration into the world educational system. The analysis is based on 680 interviews with stakeholders, employees, foreign and Kazakhstani students and faculty - participants of academic mobility and franchising programs. Recommendations are provided for HEI implementation with account of the experience gained by Kazakh National Agrarian University.