SEMEY: CITY OF HISTORY, CITY OF FUTURE

Duman Orynbekov, Rector of Shakarim University

City Day is a good reason to talk not only about the history of Semey. It is much more important today to understand what our city is becoming and what we want to see it in ten, twenty years.

For Semey, this issue is of particular importance.

In 2022, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, taking the initiative to create the Abay region, spoke about the need to restore historical justice and revive the region where great representatives of our people were born. Semey became the center of the region. Earlier, the Head of State especially noted the role of the city in the formation of Kazakh society and its importance as a historical center.

Today we can already say that this decision changed the very trajectory of the region’s development.

The President subsequently noted: the creation of new regions gave a powerful impetus to their development, improved socio-economic indicators and brought investment to the regions. Specific tasks have been set for the region: accelerating development, creating permanent jobs, developing the manufacturing industry, improving and infrastructural renewal of the regional center.

And today these changes can be seen in Semey itself.

A new bridge is being built across the Irtysh, major transport solutions are being worked out, social facilities, schools, healthcare, and utility infrastructure are being updated. A pool of 24 investment projects with a total value of 2.2 trillion tenge, designed until 2028 and involving the creation of more than eight thousand jobs, has been formed in the region!

In the context of the rapid development of the city, this question is especially important: who will work at these enterprises and design new infrastructure?

That is why the development of Semey cannot be considered separately from the development of its human capital.

Shakarim University exists in a city with a huge intellectual history.

But history has value when it continues.

Today Semey should remain a city where new scientists, engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs, programmers, researchers appear.

And here the university has a special responsibility.

In the current academic year at Shakarim University 2,616 freshmen came - 25 percent more than a year earlier.

Of these, 2,402 people entered undergraduate programs. 586 are studying under the state order of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, another 82 - under grants from the Akimat of the Abay region.

But there is a figure that I would like to pay special attention to.

1,739 first-year undergraduate students - 72.2 percent of the intake - chose to study on a paid basis.

The average score of those admitted increased by 3.3 points. 120 foreign students came to the university.

189 people entered the master's program - 24.2 percent more than a year earlier. There are 25 people enrolled in doctoral studies, an increase of 28.6 percent. This is one of the strongest results of the admissions campaign in the entire history of the university.

For us, these numbers mean much more than an increase in the contingent.

When a family decides to pay for their child’s education here, this is called an informed choice. Parents evaluate the quality of education, university opportunities, career prospects and the environment in which their child will spend the next few years.

Therefore, the current intake is also an indicator of confidence. And our task is to justify this trust.

Today, a Shakarim University student studies not only in the building. Its environment is a laboratory, an enterprise, a production site, a school, an agricultural training ground.

At the same time, a continuous educational system is being formed: school - Shakarim Higher College - Shakarim University.

This year, 540 freshmen came to Shakarim Higher College alone, 439 of them are studying on a grant.

It is fundamentally important for us that a young person can start an educational trajectory in Family and here you can get opportunities for further professional growth: from college and bachelor’s to master’s, doctoral, science, your own project or technology startup.

All this requires a different infrastructure. It is important to us what happens inside the renovated building. Therefore, we link infrastructure transformation with science, production and the tasks of the region.

This is especially important in 2026, declared the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence.

We are changing the university environment itself.

Semey should be interesting to the world. A city that wants to retain strong youth must have another resource - openness to the world.

We need partnerships that give the city and region technology, research, new educational programs and access to the international scientific environment.

Therefore, the international development of Shakarim University is at the same time the development of the international recognition of Semey.

History must work for the future

At the same time, Semey will never become an ordinary industrial or university city. It has a different depth.

Here it is impossible to separate education from history, and development from culture.

Abai, Shakarim, Alash are not only names of the past. This is an intellectual tradition that has formed a special attitude towards knowledge, education, and the moral responsibility of a person to society.

That is why today we are reconstructing the museum space of Shakarim University, which will be entirely dedicated to Shakarim. We are creating a modern scientific exhibition, working with archives, manuscripts, digital materials, research.

We must make it part of the modern intellectual life of the city.

In this I see the peculiarity of Semey, where history can coexist with artificial intelligence, the legacy of Shakarim - with an engineering laboratory, Abai studies - with international research, and the memory of Alash - with young people who today decide what Kazakhstan will be like in a few decades.

Therefore, a new bridge, a factory, a university laboratory, a landscaped courtyard, a modern school, a research project and a new workplace are in fact parts of the same system. They and only they create a reason to stay.

That is why the results of the current admissions campaign are so important for us.

2616 freshmen are thousands of young people and families who have made a choice.

In March 2025, the President, having heard plans for the development of the Abay region, ordered, together with the Government, to accelerate the development of the region, create permanent jobs, develop industry, improve Semey and its infrastructure. Today, these tasks acquire specific content.

The university is responsible for its part of this great work.

We live in an amazing time: we see with our own eyes large-scale changes in the city and at the same time we participate in them. This means that we are creating the future now.

Happy birthday, dear Semey!

Tugan kalam - Semey!