Some people reading this might be wondering: who in their right mind would send their children to TBI Sun City when there are plenty of other courses nearby? At first the answer might not be that obvious since as another TBI Bekasi victim stated Binsar spends no money on advertising. This is true, and he even tried to get me to advertise for him on internet forums to find expat teachers.

I would say there are several types of students who enrolled there:

1. Students who came to the school due to TBI’s reputation. Try not to gag, but back before all the scandals broke out, the franchise had a decent reputation.

2. Friends of students who had already enrolled there.

3. Companies that had business dealings with Binsar.

4. People that lived near Metropolitan Mal who figured, “Why go elsewhere when TBI is so close?”

5. Special needs children.*

6. Students who sign up or re-enroll after Binsar hounds their parents.**

You might be wondering why I have singled out special needs children. I do not have any prejudice against them, and I support people who do their best to ensure these children have as normal a life as possible. However, the way that they were integrated at TBI Bekasi was extremely poor, with no extra assistance being given to these children or the teachers who handled them. Due to the acute behavior problems of one of these children in particular, he created bedlam in the school, and his time at TBI Bekasi was horribly mismanged by Binsar from the start.

At TBI Bekasi there were 2 special needs children who were enrolled there, and Binsar does everything in his power to keep them there, despite them being very disruptive and even aggressive and losing other students because of them. One student, let’s call him Josh, was an enrollment in the Mickey class. He had a habit of blowing mucus out of his nose in class and rubbing it all over his face. Also, he would yell and scream at his classmates, fight with them and scream his head off every few seconds. Binsar never advised on any strategies as to how to deal with this extreme behavior. The boy’s English was amazing, but his attitude caused endless conflicts and the other students would often ask, “Teacher, why is Josh still here?” Whenever he had a tantrum, he would scream that he hates so and so in class (even though the student had nothing to him.) The only person who could make him stop screaming was Mr. Binsar.

I often went down to Binsar’s office to have him take Josh out of class. With the other teachers, he simply ignored them and refused to listen. When Binsar appears, he literally worships the man and is very, very obedient. He stops crying right off the bat, and without any complaints he does what Binsar says. His mom has a very close relationship with Binsar. I figure she probably pays him a lot of money to put up with Josh because other courses and even his school refuse to put up with him.

The other special needs kid was a slightly violent five year old who had a habit of saying horrible things about you in Indonesian and writing on the walls. As far as I know, Binsar doesn’t give him special treatment, but on the other hand he has never gotten disciplined of dealt with despite the fact that he causes massive disruptions in class and several other students have left because of him. As with Josh, no extra guidance or assistance was ever given. This is unfair as most TBI teachers will have no special needs training or background.

Another thing I want to mention before I forget is that Binsar is very aggressive when it comes to having students re-enroll, even to the point where he follows parents in public places and pressures them to re-enroll their kids. For example, I had a student named “Bella”. She told me one day that she wasn’t moving onto the next level. Out of curiosity I asked why. Bella said that her mother was tired of having Binsar come over the house all the time and asking her Mom to re-enroll her in the next level.

I have also heard reports from other students and teachers of Binsar stalking parents in public places like malls and restaurants and pressuring parents to enroll or re-enroll their children in his courses. He also spends a lot of time talking to mothers and drivers who wait in the lobby for their children to finish their courses. He tries to pull off the friendly, charismatic manager routine, but it doesn’t appear to work well as there is a severe lack of students re-enrolling at TBI Bekasi.