Since 2004, Kazakhstan's Unified National Test (UNT) has played a crucial role in ensuring fair and transparent college admissions. The country's new goal of becoming a regional center for higher education and academic excellence, on the other hand, makes it clear that the current UNT needs to be reevaluated and revised. This paper examines what UNT has done well and what it has not done sufficiently to meet the new needs. It gives an idea of what a next-generation UNT could look like, based on best practices from around the world. Given recent global and national evidence on twenty-first-century skills, we consider one possible pathway for gradual enhancement of the UNT that preserves its equity role by testing modular, skills-focused components and using human-in-the-loop assessment. This proposal is exploratory and aims to foster dialogue among stakeholders.The suggested solution employs a modular and competency-based framework that incorporates Skill-Based Tests (SBT) to assess critical thinking, academic writing, research, communication, AI, digital literacy, and creative problem-solving.