"Currently universities of economics and business in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have to master a series of challenges. They have• to demonstrate that they are reliable providers of good quality higher education by providing graduates with competencies required to evolve their professionality and to develop capacity for the labor market• to enrich the qualification-portfolio of HEI-teachers by improving their teaching qualifications• to complement and contribute to the co-creation of knowledge and to the knowledge exchange between universities and enterprises in innovative settings• to develop their students competencies and attitudes to enable them to act as innovative and responsible members of the society.In this joint project ""Teaching Competencies in Economics and Business"" served universities of economics and business as catalyzer to master these challenges. To support the development of excellence in this field a “Central Asian Center for Teaching, Learning and Entrepreneurship - CACTLE” was implemented in the innovative form of an international acting virtual expert network with a sustainable perspective.The CACTLE is dedicated • to qualify and certify HEI-teachers in modern Teaching Competencies in Economics and Business for the target groups: students, employees of private companies/public institutions and entrepreneurs.• to offer a course program and in class and long-distance training material for further training courses for enterprises/institutions to link the universities to business and industry, using specific modalities of teaching and learning patterns.• to develop a core-curriculum and teaching and learning material for an accredited elective “Entrepreneurship and Business development” at all participating universities.In the long run the CACTLE has a clear sustainable impact on human capacity building of Central Asian countries and acts as an international service network to foster the knowledge triangle."

IIn Kazakhstan and Russia the term “employability” is not listed in official documentation, such as legal regulations, reforms etc; not formulated as an strategic goal of the universities; not framed as an concept including a set of competences, skills and attitudes and no practical instruction or recommendations on how to implement it is given. Universities in KZ and PF are obliged to include certain key competence modules into the study programs which are predefined by the Ministries of Education, but normally do not pursue a holistic competence model integrated into the educational program and are running as a common thread through the university. Consequently, the topic of employability is not incorporated into the strategy of the universities and hence doesn`t have the appropriate high priority as defined in the Bologna Declaration. Following the finding of the problem analysis the core aim of the project is to place the issue of employability on universities` agenda and to develop concepts taking into account all the variety and peculiarity of the each partner university.Main steps to pursue the aim and obtain the project outputs and results:• Development of an individual competence model and definition of employability in every PC HEI taking into account country specific and institutional peculiarities • Conceptualization and establishment of Centers for Competence and Employment Development (CCED) at PC HEI with offerings to different internal and external target groups • Provision of tested of trainings, modules, tools and instrument oriented to different target groups• Promotion of the CCED as well as the competence and employability approach inside and outside the universities. • Elaboration of a manual with practical recommendations to transfer the concrete experiences of the partner by using cases and guiding questions. By pursuing these objectives the situation in the PC can be changed on the institutional and also in the mid-term perspective regional and national level, since* individual concepts for holistic competence development will be adapted to the external and internal specifics. * a definition and aim description of “Employability” as well as didactic concepts and concrete formats of measures and instruments will be suggested. * CCED as a regional expert for competence development can be positioned.