In 2013 we alerted readers to the fact that TBI Kelapa Gading had made an astonishing choice for their next School Manager. Indeed, it struck us as so ridiculous that we openly mocked the choice from the start. This was a case where caution was not required. Anyone with a lick of common sense would have known that Anita Pasaribu was going to be a disaster as a School Manager. We could crow, “We told you so,” and we certainly warn people she had failure written all over her, but how much foresight was required? The amazing thing is that the TBI “brains” ever thought that this woman could be effective in the role. Surely no one else besides themselves is surprised she has failed utterly and been demoted.

Ms Pasaribu was a 20-something former restaurant employee who was quite personable in public but was a mere Pre-Intermediate English speaker. To give you some idea of how bad she was, there are many 10 year old children at TBI who have better English skills than her. The idea that a school would appoint a Level 4 (low Pre-Intermediate) English speaker as a SM was quite laughable. Click on the links below to get some idea of her very low English language accuracy.

https://tbilanguageschool.org/2013/12/15/tbi-school-manager-cant-speak-english-fluently/

https://tbilanguageschool.org/2013/10/29/tbi-kelapa-gadings-new-manager-pre-intermediate-anita/

In another post, we showed how she had made 7 grammar mistakes in a 4-line email. We made this email a “sticky post” on this blog in 2013 and it got hundreds of views. Clearly, people were just as astonished as we were that this grammar-mangling English user was deemed good enough to manage a language school. Well, the fact is (as we made abundantly clear at the time) none of TBI’s competitors would have touched her with a barge-pole. In accepting this near-illiterate as an SM, just because they could pay her a miserable 5 million rupiah a month- around $400- they were scraping the barrel, even by their own miserable standards. In 10 years working in this industry, I have never heard or seen the likes of it.

Anita Gets the Axe

But as of June 2014, after less than a year in the job, she has followed her predecessor Nunu into TBI ignominy and been removed. The penny finally dropped for school owner, Pauwsan Sutanto, and he got rid of this TEFL bungler, who had done next to nothing to improve the school’s dismal performance. Just like Nunu, Helmy and BF before her, she was fired from TBI Kelapa Gading, proving once again that the losers Head Office pushes forward as School Managers are completely incompetent. As we said back in 2013, paying someone 5 million a month to manage your business isn’t “a bargain” if she can’t even write grammatically correct emails. Anita was, in fact, an expensive liability who just demonstrated to everyone how low TBI standards have fallen.

That no one at TBI recognized this before she dug TBI Kelapa Gading into an even deeper hole says everything you need to know about their lack of professionalism and insight. The hapless school is now onto its 4th manager since 2012, the last two- both Head Office appointees- having been removed for poor performance. As usual, they are clueless and chaotic, veering from one crisis to the next, sweeping multiple failures under the carpet. The latest manager- you have to feel a bit sorry for the poor woman- is called Tersi Valentina. It is a truly dysfunctional mess she is inheriting.

Tersi Valentina, the 4th manager since 2012!