Social Responsibility
Part of being an outstanding corporate citizen is supporting social projects to enhance the communities where we work. The Baker Hughes Foundation—through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Central Asia Republics Mission—is helping to improve vocational education in Kazakhstan with contributions of $1.5 million over 5 years.
We’re working with an international oil company to support the Know About Business (KAB) entrepreneurship course offered at vocational education institutions. The course is sponsored by the Kazakhstan Small Business Development Project, which is jointly funded by USAID and the Kazakhstan government.
This global, interactive, entrepreneurship course—which was developed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and has been introduced in about 40 countries—improves vocational students’ job prospects. Significantly, about 98,000 additional students annually are studying KAB, which is available to young people in every region of the country.
The course goals include
- increasing the annual number of Kazakhstan course students to 120,000
- creating a pilot database for each school to track KAB student experiences after graduation
- increasing the number of KAB-certified teachers in Kazakhstan to more than 650 from 23
- increasing the number of key facilitators qualified to train and certify teachers to 35 with at least one in each region
- linking teachers and vocational institutions through Kazakhstan’s existing network of 13,000 interactive video whiteboards, including a KAB website, Facebook, and e-mail.
As of April 30, 536 new KAB teachers have been certified in all 14 oblasts or territories, including Astana and Almaty. Additionally, 35 additional key facilitators were certified by ILO by the end of April.
The Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science Department for Vocational Education— including each city’s Education Department—is also providing funds. The course also is supported by the German development agency, GTZ, with teacher training in Taras and Kostenai.