Recently I went online to check the TBI website and found that one of their schools had closed down. It is hardly the first time this happened. The last TBI school to go belly-up was TBI Sudirman. TBI Cengkareng folded a few years before. Likewise, TBI Semarang went bankrupt in 2012. Furthermore, TBI Malang closed…
We recently made the mistake of looking at the TBI Kelapa Gading twitter account. Oh boy, there are so many grammar and spelling mistakes on that thing. They truly are an embarrassment to the name of English language education. They don’t know the difference between “quiet” and “quite”, for example. These people have such low-quality…
The leaks from TBI Jakarta continue to be almost unbelievably negative. The school closures, staff layoffs and pay cuts have taken their toll on morale. Even people who used to be tight-lipped and careful are now heard complaining openly about how badly managed and unjust TBI is. Indonesia is a hierarchical society. People are often…
One of the many problems with TBI is that it is a bubble of similarly deluded individuals. It always was. It is a place where people tell themselves that their extraordinarily low standards are actually the benchmark for the whole industry! Their delusions of grandeur are nowhere more in evidence than when it comes to…
We recently visited the TBI website to look at the latest version. We did not expect to be impressed but the rubbish they are now offering was gob-smackingly bad even by their own rock bottom standards. Look at it yourself and you will see pathetic testimonials from teachers with entry-level qualifications (you can lead academic…
Over the past few months, we have argued that with the ousting of TBI’s wretched old Director, the hapless and useless Ibu Mariam Kartikatrensi, the victory of her main rival, Ibu Nng Anhar, was complete. For many years, the shady yayasan (charity) USG had been the domain of Ibu Ning, while Mariam had thrown her…
This blog has always been based on a simple proposition: TBI (The British Institute) is a fraudulent, delusional and rapidly declining company which is the sick man of the Indonesian TEFL industry. Over the past several years we have attempted to document in its decline by compiling and cross-checking all the information we have accrued…
Here are some photos of the empty premises of the former TBI Kuningan. TBI has now been forced to abandon its flagship school in Jakarta, hot on the heels of having to close TBI Sudirman because it couldn’t afford the rent there. They really are going through a rough patch, as we have been telling…
TBI (The British Insitute), an ailing language chain in Indonesia, has been reeling from the news that its former Head Office at TBI Sudirman (The Sequis Centre) has been closed due to “cash flow” problems. While they will publicly deny they are have serious financial difficulties, no intelligent person will doubt that a company which…
In this final part of this four part series of posts on TBI’s organizational structure- one which we have shown has been plagued by rent-seeking practices which have sapped the energy and competitiveness of the company from the start- we look at the real reasons for Mariam’s ouster in late 2015. Why was the TBI…
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