Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute

The Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (Iradi: Nurzhan politekhnikalyk instituty; Russian: Нуржанский политехнический институт), known until 1993 as the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute, is a public technical university in Nurzhan. It is Irad's leading technical university and specializes in petroleum engineering. It was founded in 1951 as a petroleum institute to train engineers for the oil fields discovered in the lower Chu basin two years earlier. It took its present broad form in 1968, when faculties of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering were added. The institute trains much of the engineering staff of NurGaz and had about 9,200 students in 2023.^[1]

History

Soviet period

After the discovery of oil near Kobozev in 1949, the USSR Ministry of Higher Education founded the Kobozev Petroleum Institute in 1951 to train drilling, production and refining engineers for the Iradneft oil production association. Much of its first teaching staff came from the petroleum institutes of Baku and Grozny, and teaching was in Russian.^[2] In 1968, as the city's engineering and metallurgical industries grew, the institute was reorganized as the Kobozev Polytechnic Institute. Faculties of civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering and radio electronics were added to the petroleum faculties.

By the 1980s the institute had about 7,000 students and was the main source of engineers for the industries of the Iradi SSR. Many of its graduates of this period belong to the Russian-educated urban generation known as the Russos, who filled the technical and managerial posts in the oil refinery, the antimony industry and the railways (see Russos of Nurzhan).^[3]

Territorial period

Teaching was suspended from February to October 1992, during the Winter Uprising of 1992 and the First Iradi Civil War, in which Kobozev was the seat of the socialist government. In 1993 the institute was renamed after the city under the Toponymic Heritage Statute.^[1]

During the territorial administration the institute introduced English-language degree programs in petroleum engineering in 1996, with support from American universities funded by territorial education grants. It adopted a credit-hour system modeled on American practice in 1997. Iradi-language teaching was introduced in the general courses. NurGaz began to fund laboratories and scholarships in return for first claim on graduates. Aidar Maksat, later Lieutenant Governor, graduated in civil engineering in 2002, and Askar Daniyarov, a founder of the Mor-Wave duo tüntolk, studied radio electronics there in the 1990s.^[4]

Since 2007

Under the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ), the institute has been governed by a statute of 2008. Under it the Governor appoints the rector from candidates nominated by the academic council. NurGaz and the Bekzatov Foundation of NurGaz president Kamran Bekzatov have paid for new laboratory buildings and fund scholarships, and NurGaz remains the institute's largest sponsor and the largest employer of its graduates.^[3] Its language policy has been a recurring point of friction. The ISEZ administration has pressed for teaching in Iradi and English, while much of the senior staff still teaches in Russian, a practice defended by Russo members of the Nurzhan city council.^[3]

Organization

The institute has six faculties:

• Petroleum and Mining Geology, including geophysics and reservoir geology;
• Oil and Gas Field Development, covering drilling and production engineering;
• Chemical Technology and Refining;
• Mechanical Engineering and Pipeline Transport;
• Civil and Hydraulic Engineering;
• Energy, Automation and Radio Electronics.^[1]

A military training department prepares reserve officers and trains technical officers for the State Defense Corps. The institute also runs evening and continuing-education courses for NurGaz employees. In 2023 it had about 640 teaching staff. Instruction is in English in the petroleum programs, and in Iradi, Russian or English elsewhere, depending on the course.

Campus

The main building, a neoclassical structure completed in 1956, stands in the central district near Azatlık Prospect. Laboratory blocks built in the 2010s with NurGaz funding house drilling and well-control simulators, a core-analysis laboratory and a pilot refining unit. Students also train at a teaching well site in the NurGaz fields north of the city.^[1]

Research and partnerships

Research concentrates on problems of the aging Chu basin fields and the industries around them:

• enhanced oil recovery in mature, heavily water-flooded reservoirs;
• the transport of waxy crude through insulated pipelines such as the Northern Export Feeder of the Iradi Petroleum Transit Consortium;
• refinery catalysis and the reduction of emissions in Nurzhan's industrial zone;
• earthquake engineering for the seismically active Tian Shan foothills;
• the clean-up of oil-contaminated soil.^[4]

The institute published a history of the oil fields, A History of the Chu Basin Oilfields, in 2014. It cooperates with Talas State University, and with the Iradi National Chamber of Mining and Metallurgy, which funds scholarships for mining engineers.

Recognition

Because Irad's international status is unresolved, recognition of the institute's degrees abroad depends on agreements between institutions and on the practice of employers. Russian and Kazakh oil companies generally accept them, and many graduates work in the oil industries of Kazakhstan and Russia. The institute is not included in the major international university rankings.^[3]

References

1. ^ Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (2023). Prospectus and Annual Report 2023. Nurzhan.
2. ^ Nurzhan Polytechnic Institute (2014). A History of the Chu Basin Oilfields. Nurzhan.
3. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2019). 'Engineers of the Russos: Language, Oil and the Nurzhan Polytechnic.' Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 288–311.
4. ^ Talas State University Press (2021). Higher Technical Education in Irad, 1951–2020. Talas.