January 15, 1934 is the day of the official opening of the Kazakh State University (KazGU), which was formed on the base of a pedagogical institute by the resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and Kazakh Party Committee of All-Union Communist Party. On December 2, 1934, KazGU was named after the famous Soviet political leader S.M. Kirov.
Following independence in 1991, the most important task of the university was to choose a new path. As the general vector for development, KazGU identified consistent integration into the global educational system, and transition to the international standards for specialists training. The status of the university has changed significantly, which in the first year of sovereignty was named after Abu Nasr ibn al-Farabi, the great thinker of the East, “The Second Teacher after Aristotle”.
The university has been assigned a status of the state autonomous higher educational institution according to special Resolution “On the Status of al-Farabi Kazakh State University” issued on January 09, 1993 by N.A. Nazarbayev, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and was renamed into al-Farabi Kazakh State National University.
The Regulation on special status of Republican State Enterprise “al-Farabi Kazakh State National University” as an autonomous state higher educational institution was approved on July 25, 2000 by Resolution of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The university was the first among higher educational institutions in Kazakhstan to be assigned a special status of the national university according to the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan issued on July 05, 2001.
In 2006, KazNU became the first higher educational institution in the history of the state named the winner of the prize of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan for achievements in the field of quality.
Today, al-Farabi Kazakh National University is a large scientific, educational and innovative center, wherein new knowledge, progressive ideas and technologies are being generated. The main university’s benchmarks are the objectives set in the First President’s Address to the Nation: entering the ranking of the best world universities, conducting innovative activities and transferring results of scientific research into production.
The university is a world-class modern higher educational institution, a leading scientific-methodical and research center for development of the higher education system in the Central Asian region.
KazNU takes the 207th place among the 800 best universities in the world according to the international QS World University Rankings, and it is the first of the country's universities to be awarded the international sign of excellence in 2018–QS STARS - 4 STARS in terms of educational services provision, scientific and innovative activities and academic reputation.
Al-Farabi KazNU is the only Kazakhstani higher educational institution that has been accepted into the United Nations’ Academic Impact Program, and until 2020, it will be the Central Asian hub of this program.