We have long been arguing that one of the main reasons that The British Institute is failing is because of the inept TBI Director, Mariam Kartikatresni. See Part 2. of our interview series on this blog for an exploration of this theme. With this post, we want to point to Mariam’s work as a choreographer on a theatrical ensemble as proof for this theory.

First, let’s summarize why we say TBI is failing. In early 2012 TBI was supposed to open TBI Bali and TBI Palembang. Neither of these new schools have yet opened, and in all likelihood the projects have been shelved. Luke Preece was in charge of these projects and has failed in this as much else besides. In addition, TBI Kuningan lost the SIAP project, its biggest single contract for 2012. Apart from that, TBI has an ongoing, unresolved recruitment crisis, where many schools like TBI Serpong and TBI Malang have gone for months on end without a single Native Speaker teacher. TBI Serpong is online almost every month advertising for URGENTLY NEEDED Native Speakers.

With failure to open schools, loss of major projects and an acute recruitment crisis, what does Mariam Kartikatresni do? The TBI Director heads of to Senayan City in March 2012 to serve as Head Choreographer of a musical and theatrical performance called (appropriately enough) ‘The Quest for Absolute Power’. This title certainly suits a woman who has long fought to get control of the USG-TBI pie!

Now Luke Preece told us that Mariam’s real love is dance. She has long dreamt of opening a USG Dance School and when Ning Anhar hands the role of USG Director over to Mariam, she may well use TBI student payments to start some vanity project, ‘Dance school’. But this role as Head Choreographer of a theatrical performance costing 1.5 million rupiah a ticket shows that her real priority is not TBI. As TBI Director in a time of crisis for the company, she should have been ensuring that Franchise Schools had enough teachers; she should have been ensuring TBI didn’t keep losing lucrative contracts; she should have been making sure that TBI fulfilled its goals of phasing out KTCS by mid-2012. In other words, she should have been choreographing TBI, not some dance show at Senayan City. As we have long been arguing, her absent and ineffective leadership is one of the main reasons The British Institute is failing.