Teachers at Baganashyl Orphanage Claim Pressure to Resign

Teachers at the Baganashyl Orphanage claim they are being pressured to submit voluntary resignation letters as the institution undergoes administrative transfer to the city of Almaty, Orda.kz reports.

In a video appeal sent to lawyer Anna Chernova, orphanage staff allege that management is targeting those who had previously defended the children during a high-profile dispute over their attempted relocation.

According to the teachers, the administration now wants to remove “inconvenient” staff members under the guise of voluntary resignations.

Finally they said: yes, you will stay. But the children feel that if we are fired, they will be taken away tomorrow. Now they want to take statements of our own free will from us — that is, to get rid of the ‘inconvenient’ employees, those who protected the children,
they stated.

Just a day earlier, local authorities confirmed that the orphans would not be relocated. The orphanage is officially being transferred to the balance sheet of the city of Almaty.

This was also outlined in a message from President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev’s administration, which halted the controversial plan to resettle the children in Konayev and promised they would not be separated during renovations.

Despite this, teachers say the process has not been handled lawfully or transparently.

We do not agree with the procedure of transferring us from the region to the city, since all provisions of the Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, constitutional rights, and the law on the status of a teacher are violated. On July 31, an unscheduled meeting of the staff was held, which was not notified in advance. Accordingly, not everyone could attend, the meeting was held without the participation of a lawyer, as well as without the HR department,
the staff said

The details remain somewhat unclear based on the video clips alone. It appears that teachers are being asked to sign leave or resignation forms as a precondition for being rehired under the city administration.

To clarify the situation, Orda.kz spoke with one of the teachers, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna.

Yesterday, a commission arrived from Astana — from the Ministry of Education. And, most importantly, representatives from the regional administration arrived, who, in fact, allowed what was happening. Now they say: ‘Look, today — July 31 — we are transferring the institution to the city, and now you will be in Child Support Center No. 2, which is located within the city limits of Almaty.’ But at the same time, we are firing all the employees, especially the teachers. They say: ‘Now you will all write statements of voluntary resignation, and then you will go through a competition — whether we take you or not, we will see.’ What is this? To the same institution again through a competition, where we work. They want to fire us now, and still separate the children — distribute them between two Child Support Centers, and that’s it. Everything will happen quietly and peacefully. But this morning we made some noise — and now we are waiting for the commission to come again. We were told that we would stay here until March 2026 because the renovation would not start right away. I said, ‘At least leave the people.’ This is genuine trauma, everything happened unexpectedly. They should have warned us, notified us. Yesterday everyone was in shock. I told them directly, ‘You made it clear to us that you simply decided to punish us,’
 the teacher said.

Orda.kz reached out to the Almaty Region Education Department for comment, but no official response was provided by the time of publication.

We continue to follow the situation closely.

Original Author: Alexandra Mokhireva