Investment in education

KAZ Minerals provides skilled employment to its staff and is looking to develop the next generation of mining professionals in Kazakhstan. To support this effort, Aktogay invests in the education and training of young professionals in the East Region of Kazakhstan.

Aktogay has provided over 150 grants in recent years to universities and colleges throughout the region, each of which has an appropriate specialisation in technical subjects. Azamat Kumargaliyev was awarded a grant and achieved a diploma with honours. He said, “I started studying at the Higher College of East Kazakhstan State University, having won one of the grants which were provided on a competitive basis. On graduation from college, I qualified as a chemical laboratory assistant. My plan for the future is to continue my studies at the university, and then work in the field of my speciality.”

In addition to providing grants to students the Group has also donated equipment to local technical colleges so that all students can benefit from practical experience with the latest technologies used at the Group’s world class mines and processing facilities.

In Ust-Kamenogorsk and Ayagoz, Aktogay has modernised college classrooms and purchased or donated equipment, including mechanical equipment and loaders. It has enhanced laboratory classrooms by fitting them with interactive training tools, video demonstrations, equipment and sets of chemical reagents, while students specialising in mineral enrichment have benefited from laboratories which are newly equipped with technology required to learn the crushing, grinding, flotation and thickening processes which the Group employs at its concentrators.

In addition, Aktogay has continued its successful internship programme, which has now been completed by over 200 interns who have taken up full time employment at the site. The Group is proud to continue to enhance its links with the communities living, studying and working in its regions of operations.