We have been broadening our investigation into TBI (The British Institute) in recent days. Our goal is offer a more complete and representative portrait of what TBI has really been up to. It seems to us that the deeper we probe into this language school, the worse things look. Yesterday we printed some 2007 Dave’s ESL Cafe discussion in the wake of teacher deportations from TBI Bogor and another school in Tangerang. One of the users on that site made the very accurate and damning observation that TBI threw those two teachers to the dogs. As the user said, TBI could have paid a large bribe and ended that matter: after all, they were the ones who had put the teachers on the wrong visa. They had decided to go the illegal route and then sacrificed the teachers when Immigration came a-raiding. ‘Just go get more bules from the bule vending-machine‘, as one comment-poster wrote. Exactly how Luke, Ashley and Mariam think of their teachers.

The newspaper report (in Indonesian) we published today reveals just how humiliating the whole affair was. These teachers were arrested and then sent on the first plane out of the country like common criminals. They are mentioned in the same breath as a ‘deported foreign gigolo’ who was also living in Bogor. And don’t think that this story was just covered in the Indonesian press. The Jakarta post also ran a story on the TBI deportations (we will reprint it on this blog soon.)

It is worth mentioning at this point that Ashley Platts was the ‘brains’ behind this whole debacle. He recommended employing TBI teachers on ‘business visas’, which was illegal, because it would be easier and cheaper to get rid of poorly performing teachers after a few months. If the teachers weren’t any good, TBI could throw them back into the sea. No KITAS costs for TBI. No worries.

And why is Ashley Platts, the architect of this and many other disasters, still with TBI as a ‘management expert’? Because he is in the inner loop of TBI corruption and cronyism and never questions anything Mariam does. As we have said, it is not a common based on a merit; it is a closed circle; it is an ESL Mafia.