Kazakhstan’s 2025 Water Code aims to institutionalize Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), but its success is threatened by a persistent “implementation gap” between policy requirements and the workforce’s practical competencies. This study provides empirical evidence of a persistent misalignment between water-related higher education and emerging governance demands in Kazakhstan by conceptualizing the implementation gap as a human-capital deficit. We conducted a repeated two-wave survey of students enrolled in “Water Resources” programs (n<inf>1</inf> = 39, n<inf>2</inf> = 82) to empirically diagnose this gap and examine changes in educational preferences over time. The findings reveal an overwhelming demand for dual education (97.6%), alongside a statistically significant shift (χ2(1) = 33.53, p < 0.001) from theory-oriented learning (56.4% to 4.9%) toward practice-oriented formats (30.8% to 62.2%). Key reported constraints include limited access to modern laboratories (47.6%) and insufficient real-world professional experience (28%). Taken together, these results indicate a structural misalignment between academic training and the competency requirements implied by ongoing water-sector reforms. The study concludes that dual education may function as an institutional mechanism for narrowing the policy-to-competence gap, supporting efforts to operationalize the 2025 Water Code and advance Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 6. © 2026 by the authors.
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