A Degree Is a Starting Point, Not the Finish Line: Why We Must Keep Learning in the Age of Algorithms

The familiar life script once followed a clear path: school, university, a degree, and then a steady job in one’s field, where the knowledge accumulated over years of study could last for decades. That model is now becoming a thing of the past. The digital age is changing not only our work tools or lecture formats; it is reshaping the very logic of human life, blurring the familiar boundaries between “learning” and “working.”

Students No Longer Arrive Alone

They arrive with an entire ecosystem: cloud platforms, ongoing online courses, professional programmes, and artificial intelligence that responds to queries at any time of day. This shift towards hybrid learning happened without any grand formal announcement. At some point, we simply realised that much of our intellectual lives were taking place in digital spaces.

Kazakhstan is moving along this path at an accelerated pace. In his Address on 8 September 2025, the President set the goal of making the country fully digital within three years, and on 18 September the relevant ministry was transformed into the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development [1]. The same Address stressed a key point: the competencies of the future must be developed from school onwards [2].

The conclusion is clear for everyone—students and experienced professionals alike: learning to work alongside machines, mastering new technologies, and changing established habits are not things to put off until “someday.” They have to begin now.

Digital Does Not Automatically Mean Digitally Literate

Trust in AI should not be assumed to be unconditional or the same among all students. There is a convenient myth that because today’s students grew up with smartphones in their hands, they automatically understand technology. But using technology and understanding it are two different skills.

Someone can spend hours scrolling through a feed and navigate apps with ease, yet still fail to distinguish a neural network’s confidently stated error from a verified fact. Some students use AI as an auxiliary tool, checking the information it provides against other sources. Others may rely on AI-generated answers without further verification.

Digital literacy, therefore, is measured not by whether someone uses AI, but by their ability to assess its answers critically, verify information, and formulate conclusions independently.

How Artificial Intelligence Is Being Integrated at KazNU

At Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (KazNU), this transition is visible not in grand declarations but in everyday details: new subjects on the timetable, certificates in student accounts, and rules that seemed unnecessary only recently. One of the major initiatives of the past two years has been the AI-Sana programme, launched at the President’s initiative in December 2024 [3].

According to the university’s rector, Zhanseit Tuymebayev, students and faculty members at KazNU received a total of 45,394 certificates during the programme’s introductory, or “zero,” stage. New subjects also appeared, including “The Kazakh Language and Artificial Intelligence” [4]. It is significant that faculty members learned alongside students: the university is taking on the unfamiliar role of a community in which everyone learns together.

At the same time, the use of AI is not left unregulated. KazNU has a Regulation on the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies governing the use of AI in teaching and in graduation projects [5], while, according to UNESCO data cited in a 2026 overview, only 19% of universities worldwide had adopted a formal policy in this area [6].

Learning is also extending beyond the classroom: from May to December 2024, 2,920 KazNU students joined the Coursera platform, and 2,743 of them completed at least one course integrated into their academic subjects [7].

New Expectations from the Labour Market and Employers

AI is no longer a concern only for programmers. Finance professionals must work with large datasets, auditors need to understand how an algorithm has generated a report, and lawyers must assess the risks of automated decisions. According to the World Economic Forum, by 2030, 39% of workers’ current skills will have changed or become outdated, and 59 out of every 100 workers will need retraining [8].

Yet the ability to use AI is valuable only when a professional knows their field well enough to recognise when the machine is wrong. A draft of the national report “Quality Education Accessible to Everyone,” cited by a KazNU vice-rector, puts the point bluntly: AI will not replace people, but people who use it will replace those who cannot or will not [9].

Learning, therefore, does not end with graduation: yesterday’s graduates will have to master new tools in the workplace.

The University’s Role in an Era of Accessible Information

If knowledge is available online and courses from leading universities can be accessed from home, a natural question arises: why go to university at all?

The answer lies in what cannot yet be handed over to a machine: a teacher who can see exactly where a student has become confused; a team whose members must find a way to work together even when everyone is tired; and a real project for which you are personally accountable.

In 2024, Altai Kazmagambetov, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, expressed an idea that now sounds almost like a prediction: face-to-face education built around human interaction may become the most exclusive form of education, because as AI develops, the value of human communication will only increase [9].

The university’s task today is therefore not to compete with algorithms in the speed of knowledge delivery, but to teach people how to learn again, verify information, work with others, and understand the limits of technology.

In this sense, a degree truly becomes a starting point rather than a finish line. Artificial intelligence has already entered the university; that much is settled. The question that remains open is this: will universities teach us to remain the authors of our own thoughts before we become accustomed to handing them over at the first prompt?

Academic supervisor: G. Zh. Zhunusova

Author: S. Mukhsimatova, student

Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Higher School of Economics and Business

References

1. Kapital.kz. “Transition to Digital Governance Is a Strategic Goal for the Next Three Years,” 2025. https://kapital.kz/tehnology/141141/perehod-k-cifrovomu-upravleniyu-strategicheskaya-cel-na-tri-goda.html

2. Profile. “A Fully Digital Country: Kazakhstan’s President Sets the Goal of Digitising All Sectors of the Economy,” September 2025. https://profile.ru/society/polnocennaya-cifrovaya-strana-prezident-kazahstana-postavil-zadachu-polnoj-cifrovizacii-vseh-sfer-ekonomiki-1753052/

3. Kazakhstan Pravda. “Implementation and Plans for the AI-Sana Programme,” 2026. https://kazpravda.kz/n/realizatsiya-i-plany-programmy-ai-sana/

4. Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. “AI-SANA: KazNU’s First Results” (interview with the Chair of the Board and Rector), 2 June 2025. https://farabi.university/news/97143?lang=ru

5. Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. Regulations on the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies at KazNU (accessed 12 October 2026). https://farabi.university/storage/files/2527152912671f1a7566582205319302_Положение о применении технологий искусственного интеллекта в КазНУ.pdf

6. Media & Learning. “OECD Urges Systematic Policies as GenAI Use in Universities Becomes Near-Universal” (overview of the OECD report citing a 2025 UNESCO survey), 2026. https://media-and-learning.eu/subject/artificial-intelligence/oecd-urges-systematic-policies-as-genai-use-in-universities-becomes-near-universal/

7. Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. “Coursera Qazaqstan Project in the al-Farabi Kazakh National University,” 30 December 2024. https://farabi.university/news/93509

8. World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs Report 2025, January 2025. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/digest/

9. NUR.KZ. “Flexible, Effective and Accessible Education: How AI Is Affecting the Educational Process in Kazakhstan” (interview with KazNU Vice-Rector A. Kazmagambetov), 25 July 2024. https://www.nur.kz/society/2139640-gibkoe-effektivnoe-i-dostupnoe-obrazovanie-kak-primenenie-ii-vliyaet-na-obrazovatelnyy-process-v-kazahstane/