Kazakhstani universities will be given the opportunity to shorten the duration of their educational programs to 2.5–3 years starting from the current academic year. In addition, universities will be able to introduce more flexible and hybrid learning formats. The country is also expanding the use of artificial intelligence in higher education. The announcement was made by Kazakhstan’s Minister of Science and Higher Education, Sayasat Nurbek.

“Starting in 2022, the first thing we did was change the state educational standard. And now universities can independently determine and change up to 92% of educational program content, including the duration of study,” the minister told journalists.

According to Nurbek, the aim is to adapt education more quickly to the changing demands of the labor market. In some fields, universities can experiment with shorter study periods.

The approach is based on the idea that if the same educational outcomes can be achieved in a shorter period of time, students can graduate sooner and enter the labor market faster.

Notably, Kazakhstan is pursuing these changes while also establishing university-based AI centers. But to what extent does relying on AI contribute to the development of students’ cognitive abilities?

Research Perspective

In 2025, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab (MIT Media Lab) examined how the use of artificial intelligence affects human cognitive activity while writing essays.

The 54 participants were divided into three groups: one wrote with the assistance of a large language model, another used a search engine, and the third worked without any external technological tool, relying solely on their own knowledge and reasoning.

The researchers recorded the participants’ brain activity and compared the results across the three groups. The group that used artificial intelligence showed weaker connectivity between brain regions than the group that worked without a technological tool. The researchers also found that greater reliance on technology was associated with lower cognitive engagement.

Scientists describe this phenomenon as “cognitive offloading” — transferring mental work to an external tool. Simply put, people may transfer part of their cognitive work, and sometimes a substantial part of it, to technology.

For example, when a student independently develops an argument, finds evidence to support it, and formulates a conclusion, they are engaging in cognitive work. If artificial intelligence performs the same tasks, the student may obtain a finished result more quickly, but the amount of mental work they perform independently may decrease.

Notably, during the study, participants who used artificial intelligence had greater difficulty recalling specific parts of the text they had written.
At the same time, according to Kazakhstan’s Minister of Science and Higher Education, students sometimes forget what they learned in their first year by the time they reach their fourth year. He said this was one of the reasons the authorities decided to give universities the opportunity to shorten the duration of study.