Weeks after deadly protests rocked Kazakhstan, academics are reflecting on recent events and government plans for systemic reform, which have put a spotlight on higher education.

In early January, simmering unrest in the country bubbled over, prompting 50,000 people to take to the streets to protest at Kazakhstan’s long-deteriorating political and economic situation and widespread corruption.

By mid-month, an estimated 225 of them had died – marking the deadliest event in country’s 30-year history since it declared independence from the Soviet Union.

The events shocked Kazakhs, forcing a reckoning in the country’s ruling party, including a transfer of power from the country’s former president Nursultan Nazarbayev to its current head, president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who has vowed to tackle the causes of unrest.

As policymakers prepared for overhauls, academics shared with Times Higher Education their hopes for the coming reforms.

“It was a very horrible situation – it changed everything,” said Sholpan Yessimova, vice-rector for academic innovations and graduate studies at Akhmet Yassawi University, in south-western Kazakhstan, of recent protests. But she wondered whether there might be a silver lining.

“The situation is giving opportunities and a new chance to changes in the HE system,” she said, adding that “we need to change, and this is being pushed by the president now”.