“Open a Mining Institute in Karaganda”: the formation of the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute in the 1950s—1960s (according to archival documents)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the opening and formation of the first higher technical educational institution in Central Kazakhstan — the Karaganda Mining Institute, and later — the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute. One of the main tasks of the new university was the training of highly qualified specialists for the coal industry of Central Kazakhstan. Based on the study of historical and archival material, an attempt was made to reconstruct the main milestones in the formation and development of the Karaganda Mining (Polytechnic) Institute. The main source was the archival materials of fund 645 (Karaganda Polytechnic Institute) and fund 341 (Karaganda Mining College) of the State Archive of the Karaganda region, as well as documents of party and government bodies, documents of regional authorities (Central Kazakhstan), statistical data and memoirs of Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan A.S. Saginova. It was revealed that at the initial stage of the formation of the university, there were difficulties of material, technical, personnel, and organizational nature, but the Institute successfully coped with the tasks. Moreover, it managed to expand and transform in 1958 into the Polytechnic Institute. The historical reconstruction showed that the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute became a major technical university in the 1950–1960s for a whole range of faculties and specialties, which is of great importance not only for the development of the Central Kazakhstan region but also for the whole of Kazakhstan. A huge role in the transformation of the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute into the leading technical university of the republic belongs to the Rector Abylkas Saginovich Saginov, who for a long time (over 30 years) led this university. In recognition of his merits, on February 19, 2022, Karaganda Technical University (the successor to KPTI) was named after Academician A.S. Saginova.