Mikhail Karpovich Grishin
The Institute was headed by the graduate of M.I. Kalinin Moscow Institute of Nonferrous Metals and Gold, miner Mikhail Karpovich Grishin. He occupied the post of Shymkent Mining College Director. He had an oratorical talent. As a mining engineer, he lectured on social sciences. At that time, at the institute, all students of the mining faculty wore paramilitary mining uniforms. It was decided to construct a new building in the courtyard of the old school building with access to Lenin Avenue (now Dostyk). Training the highly qualified engineers from those who had little command of the Russian language, who did not have basic skills of industrial production in those years was a very difficult, troublesome task. And in this the institute was greatly assisted by USSR Ministry of Higher Education. To reduce the dropout rate of Kazakh students, KazMMI was allowed to introduce, from September 1, 1949, the teaching of Russian language and literature in place of foreign languages at 1st and 2nd courses at the higher educational institution. The special attention of the country’s Government to the training of engineering and technical personnel from people of indigenous nationality is explained not only by the tasks of providing industry with a sufficient number of highly qualified local specialists, but also by the need for consistent and most complete implementation of national policy, which was the key to successfully solving problems in higher education.