A new scandal is unfolding in Kazakhstan over the Digital Family Map and a special well-being calculator on the eGov portal. It has emerged that the system recognizes 16-year-old schoolchildren and high school students as "fully able-bodied citizens" rather than dependents. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
As a result, the algorithms raise the family's overall well-being level. It turned out that the system considers "able-bodied" not only 10th-graders but also mothers who daily care for incapacitated first-group disabled individuals.
"The calculator believes that my daughter, a 16-year-old 10th-grader, is not a dependent but a fully able-bodied person," a Kazakh woman said indignantly.
Property assessment adds fuel to the fire. For instance, a 20-year-old used car in the calculator automatically raises the family's status.
Kazakhstanis fear that due to this approach, other social payments may also be at risk. In particular, the survivor's benefit, which by law is paid until the age of 23 while the youngest child studies at a college or university. If the algorithm sets the status "able-bodied" from the age of 16, payments may be cut.
Read also: Not only unemployment benefit: what assistance Kazakhstanis can count on
While some users ironically note that children are effectively being pushed to drop out of school after the 9th grade and work as waiters or cleaners instead of getting an education, others remind that formally, from the age of 16, under the Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, citizens do indeed have the right to work.
Nevertheless, most parents agree that officials and developers need to urgently revise eGov algorithms so that studying at school does not turn children into "idlers" and "workers" on paper.
Earlier, Kursiv reported that Kazakhstan had tightened rules for the unemployed.