Purpose of time zone change survey: Minister's response

Tengrinews.kz - Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek commented on the information about the survey on the time change in Kazakhstan that recently appeared and disappeared from the eGov mobile application.
On the sidelines of the Mazhilis, the minister was asked why the survey on the time change was conducted in the eGov mobile application and what would be done with its results. Nurbek replied that the public opinion survey was "one of the components" of a large study on the impact of the new time zone on the health of Kazakhstanis.

"That's why we initiated such a small study. The sample was 200 thousand people. We collected these numbers in literally three days. We will also pass this data on to our scientists now. We will announce the competition (to conduct the study - ed.) next week. I think the competition procedures themselves will take about a month, maybe a little more. Specific technical specifications and research amounts will be determined there. And we plan to launch this study in January, from the beginning of next year," said Sayasat Nurbek.

According to him, the opinions of 200 thousand people should be enough. This is the recommendation of sociologists.

"We collected literally (the required number - ed.) in three days. Very quickly. The essence of the study is mainly aimed at studying the change in time zone on health. If you look at all the criticism, what is it based on? What is inconvenient, what interferes with wakefulness, interferes with sleep patterns. These are all the main questions that are raised, and the focus of the study will be on them," the minister explained.

Sayasat Nurbek emphasized that the main customer of the large-scale study is the Ministry of Healthcare. And the Ministry of Science and Higher Education will finance the work.

"Program-targeted grants are mainly for three years of research. But here we probably won't drag it out for three years, we'll try to complete the main part of the research next year," Nurbek added.

The minister clarified that he himself did not take the survey about the time change.

Earlier, the eGov mobile app offered Kazakhstanis a survey with a series of questions about the time zone change: what time zone is relevant for them, what to do with the already established time, what they lack time for during the day, and so on.
However, later the survey on time zone changes disappeared from the app.
Why survey on time change disappeared from eGov app