Financing for equity in pre-primary education
1. Education resources to subnational governments
2. Education resources to institutions
3. Education resources to students and families
4. Social policies and family support programmes
Introduction
Key financing indicators (UIS Data)
The official entrance age to pre-primary education is 3 (UIS 2024 estimates). No data is available regarding the number of years of compulsory pre-primary education granted in legal frameworks. The net enrolment rate for pre-primary for both sexes is 69.57% (UIS 2025 estimates).
Governance
Responsibility for financing pre-primary education is shared across levels of government: the Ministry of Education is the lead sector authority for preschool policy and for organizing state support instruments in the preschool sector, while local executive bodies (akimats) are the key implementers that fund and manage many day-to-day preschool services through local budgets; overall budget planning/execution and intergovernmental fiscal arrangements sit with the national public finance system led by the Ministry of Finance including how local budgets are consolidated/handled within the budget system.
Tuition-free status
The number of years of free pre-primary education granted in legal frameworks is 3 (UIS 2024 estimates).
1. Education resources to subnational governments
Financing for pre-primary is channelled through the intergovernmental budget system. The central (republican) budget supports sub-national budgets through instruments such as subventions and targeted transfers, after which local executive bodies (akimats) plan and execute most preschool spending from local budgets, including paying municipal kindergartens and purchasing places or services from non-state providers through state purchasing arrangements.
2. Education resources to institutions
According to the 2017 Law on Approval of Methodology for Per-Capita Standard Financing of Pre-School Education and Training, Secondary Education, as well as Technical and Vocational, Post-Secondary Education, within local budgets, the key public funding mechanisms for allocating resources across providers are the per-capita (normative) methodology. At provider level, financing is calculated by taking the monthly per-child norm and multiplying it by the actual enrolled contingent (with a cap linked to the organization’s designed capacity), and summing this across relevant preschool group types; the per-child norm is structured as education-process costs plus education-environment costs and is adjusted through coefficients (including by hours of stay and by group type).
Equity is embedded in these coefficients and parameters because the per-child amount is intentionally higher where needs or costs are higher - such as special-needs and certain health-related groups, rural settings (rural wage coefficient), oblast/city groupings with different current-maintenance norms, and legally defined disaster/radiation-risk zones.
3. Education resources to students and families
Kazakhstan has introduced a parent-facing voucher instrument as part of a money-follows-the-child reform, first piloted in Taraz from 9 July 2024 through personalised financing of the state educational order: parents receive an individual voucher (certificate) that can be redeemed at any participating kindergarten - public or private - meeting required standards, and public funding is then paid to the provider based on the child’s placement rather than being tied only to institutional budgets.
Following the pilot, the model has been scaled to 12 cities and 3 districts and is being phased in nationwide according to an approved schedule, positioning voucher financing as a core instrument to expand access, strengthen parental choice, and improve efficiency and accountability in the preschool system.
4. Social policies and family support programmes
Kazakhstan has social instruments such as means-tested targeted social assistance (TSA) and the National Fund for Children (universal), as well as other social payments that can strengthen household resources. However, these measures are not designed as preschool-specific financing tools and do not directly subsidise or guarantee access to pre-primary education; their influence on preschool participation is mainly indirect.
