Shoqan School

In Brief

Shoqan is for locally-based families - Kazakhstani or long-term residents - who want a genuinely high-quality Kazakhstani education with serious university ambitions, not a Western curriculum. It is not an international school, and families needing IB, IGCSE, or AP for a future international move should look elsewhere.

Shoqan School opened in 2020 in the Samal microdistrict of Medeu, founded by Kenges Rakishev and Aselle Tasmagambetova as a nonprofit. Named after the 19th-century Kazakh explorer and scholar Shoqan Walikhanov, it follows Kazakhstan's national curriculum - not IB, Cambridge, or any international framework - but with a depth in mathematics, English, and Kazakh that sets it apart from most state schools. At 1,300-plus students it is one of the largest private schools in Almaty, and admission is competitive: entrance exams in maths, Kazakh or Russian, and English are required from Grade 3 upwards.

The headline result in April 2025 was three students admitted to Harvard and UC Berkeley, one with a full grant and an SAT score of 1510, through a mentorship partnership with Luminary Education, a British university consultancy. That outcome - rare by any standard in Central Asia - has put Shoqan on the map for Almaty families with serious ambitions. The school runs SAT preparation, IELTS courses, and a Saturday development programme alongside the national curriculum, and both Kazakh and Russian medium streams are available. The 4.4 rating on 2GIS from nearly 800 reviews is among the strongest of any school on this list.

Fees sit at around KZT 3,593,000 per year based on available ranking data - lower than most international schools and in the same bracket as ISA. The fee PDF was not accessible at time of research, so confirm the current figure directly with the school before comparing. Families arriving from international curricula will find the national programme a significant adjustment, and there is no provision for non-Kazakh or non-Russian speakers. Shoqan is a school for families already embedded in the Kazakhstani education system who want to push their children further within it.