Astana, 2 November. A law on supporting tourism and children’s sport, signed early in 2026, provides a supplement of 30% of the base salary for coach-teachers who have passed qualification testing and work to national standards, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport reported.
Kazakhstan has 526 children’s and youth sports schools, with more than 15,000 coach-teachers and 398,342 children training; admission starts at age five. Since the start of the year 5,863 coaches have taken refresher courses. Qualification testing is planned to cover more than 30% of coaches every year; it is run by the Republican Training, Methodological and Analytical Centre for Physical Culture and Sport. The Republican Budget Commission backed funding the supplements from local budgets.
The law moves children’s and youth sports schools to per-capita normative financing. For 2026–2028 74 billion tenge is planned, of which 1.8 billion will pay the coaches’ supplements and the rest will go to the schools’ facilities, children’s participation in competitions and training camps, pharmacological support, kit and equipment.
What it means: The headline of the statement says that the pay of one in three coaches rose by 30%, but the text has no such data: it names the size of the supplement (30% of salary) and a plan to test more than 30% of coaches every year. How many coaches already receive the supplement, the ministry did not say.
Who benefits: Coaches who pass the testing, and the 398,000 children who train at the schools: only 1.8 billion of the 74 billion tenge goes to supplements, the rest to training conditions. What the average coach’s pay will be is not stated.
Background: The Ministry of Tourism and Sport launched a weekly “Sports Region” column; in its first issue, on the capital, it said more than 600,000 people, 43.6% of the population, regularly do sport in Astana.
