Sergei Alabugin, head of the company that developed artsport.kz, the platform for per-capita normative funding of the state sports and creative order, has published the current situation with vouchers in the queue, VRKNews.kz reports.
Just over 750 thousand children, who have been given the chance to attend sports clubs and creative circles free of charge, use vouchers under the ArtSport programme of per-capita funding for children's sport and creativity in Kazakhstan.
On his page on the social network Facebook, Sergei Alabugin said that, as the statistics show, the largest number of vouchers in the queue is with the culture department of Almaty region, the smallest with the culture department of North Kazakhstan region.
Queue of the regional akimats' sports departments:
- Nur-Sultan — 32,117
- Almaty — 30,791
- Shymkent — 6,708
- Akmola region — 4,992
- Aktobe region — 5,812
- Almaty region — 33,671
- Atyrau region — 5,217
- East Kazakhstan region — 3,889
- Zhambyl region — 4,078
- West Kazakhstan region — 7,669
- Karaganda region — 10,983
- Kostanay region — 2,815
- Kyzylorda region — 5,961
- Mangistau region — 9,833
- Pavlodar region — 11,748
- North Kazakhstan region — 899
- Turkestan region — 21,661
Queue of the regional akimats' culture departments:
- Nur-Sultan — 29,512
- Almaty — 45,652
- Shymkent — 15,906
- Akmola region — 6,650
- Aktobe region — 7,849
- Almaty region — 76,622
- Atyrau region — 503
- East Kazakhstan region — 2,812
- Zhambyl region — 3,583
- West Kazakhstan region — 1,739
- Karaganda region — 4,006
- Kostanay region — 8,681
- Kyzylorda region — 10,962
- Mangistau region — 5,317
- Pavlodar region — 3,404
- North Kazakhstan region — 467
- Turkestan region — 6,173
Public discussions also continue about what is hindering the full implementation of the project of free children's clubs and sports sections in Kazakhstan. Last week in Nur-Sultan a press conference of the Association of Service Providers under the ArtSport programme of free creative clubs and sections for children was held, at which Aruzhan Sain, Ombudsperson for Children's Rights in Kazakhstan, and Sergei Alabugin, developer of the project platform, and a number of representatives of state bodies spoke and responded to criticism from operators and complaints from providers.
All Kazakhstani children have the right to attend two sections and clubs free of charge. To repeat: so far just over 750 thousand children use this opportunity under the ArtSport programme of per-capita funding for children's sport and creativity. And even they risk losing their places.
* * *
Recall that at the end of 2020 President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law that allowed children aged four to 17 to attend sections at the expense of local budgets. Soon the artsport.edu.kz platform will be transferred to the state's balance sheet. The corresponding regulatory act (launching this process) came into force on 23 May 2022.
To the question “Why are you giving away the platform? Aren't you afraid it will be buried? There are many examples”, Sergei Alabugin answered as follows:
“A very right question, and such fears of course exist, but there are also a number of factors that leave no other choice:
- Such a platform cannot be in private hands; after all it is a state order and the state should be responsible for it.
- It is extremely hard to support such a system at one's own expense; the costs are colossal and its upkeep adds up to serious expense.
- Other state bodies must be given the opportunity to obtain the platform's data; for this an integration service must be presented on the SmartBridge platform.
- We are now spending a great deal of time on it to the detriment of the company's core business; in effect we are freezing our resources....”
As the platform's developer notes, it is costly to maintain: “...One message costs 12 tenge, there are 1 million people on the platform, and on average each user gets three SMS messages a month. Then the arithmetic is simple — 432 million tenge a year. And that is only SMS, not to mention server upkeep, the project team's payroll and other expenses.”
