We have had the 45th message from ‘Michelle’ this week. Poor pet is obsessed with our blog: we have been receiving upwards of a dozen abusive comments a day. In this one, she claims people must have been ‘fired or demoted’ to make way for Cam as Actel. Um….no actually. The facts of the case are more interesting than Michelle’s inaccurate conjecture. Here is the truth:

The Actel went to Penabur Intermational, where this teacher still works. The teacher is British and has a PGCE. Said teacher is currently receiving a salary of $2200 a month, which is about $800 more a month than said teacher received at TBI. Ashley Platts had told the TBI owners she was overpaid and Platts recommended replacing her with a cheaper Indonesian. The reality is that is that this expat teacher was underpaid. She has received far more outside TBI.

TBI is now a cheap organization which doesn’t pay qualified expats enough. Platts was wrong: TBI didn’t pay this teacher enough. 

The other expat teacher, J**, left for Penabur too, where he receives several hundred dollars a month more than he ever did at TBI. The real problem with TBI Franchise is the pathetically low wages that they pay qualified teachers. All my teachers completed 2 contracts at Kelapa Gading and then went on to better-paying jobs. This is a badge of honor. They all moved forward in their careers, unlike the degree-less Preece who couldn’t even work for EF China. Preece and Platts have back-stabbed all previous expats and made all management Indonesian: this is their only legacy at TBI. They are traitors and liars and TBI Kelapa Gading has collapsed due to their idiotic business ‘advice’.

TBI Kelapa Gading was in fact so professional in early 2012 that Penabur poached both of my expat teachers. Penabur had used them both on a Penabur local-teacher training project with TBI Kelapa gading and had then ‘headhunted’ these well-respected teachers. We couldn’t keep them because the owners had been told by Platts they were overpaid: the reality is other schools wanted them so much they would pay hundreds of dollars per month more for them.

I too was repeatedly invited to come and work for Penabur by their then Head of Training. Impressed by my teaching skills, this person asked me to come and help them with their teacher training and to work at Penabur International. In the end I didn’t pursue this invitation: I thought it was important that someone expose TBI for the sham they are. Here is the last of several invitations I received by email (there were more by sms) to move across to Penabur. The idea I had no more options in Jakarta is laughable and another Preece lie. Preece simply can’t understand why I would turn down more money in Jakarta to do the right thing morally as he has no morals. But someone needed to stand up to Luke and Mariam’s vile, slanderous, back-stabbing mafia.

Noted, thanks.
Btw, are you still in Malaysia, so I heard? Any chance to meet?

Thanks.