Back in 2013 we ran the following article, which now seems more relevant than ever. Since we first published it, our predictions have been borne out in a most striking manner. While there were only 4 Wall Streets in Greater Jakarta a mere 2 years ago, they are now about to open their seventh, at Bintaro;…
TBI Semarang isn’t the only TBI school to have gone bankrupt. There is also the sad case of TBI Cengkareng, which went belly up around 2011. It had been slowly withering for years; someone must have lost a small fortune on their investment in this wretched school. Look at the advertising material below and you will…
TBI’s pathetic decline towards irrelevance grows more pronounced by the minute. Better and more professional competitors are crowding them out of the market, revealing them for the unprofessional, out-of-date and inept company that they really are. More on their continued descent soon, but in the meantime, we offer you the truly contemptible: Binsar Simorangkir, having…
Really I haven’t posted that much about TBI this year. First of all, I was focusing on Rumah Bahasa, a new rogue operator which was employing teachers on tourists visas and taking up to 3 months to “process” customer refunds. Mind you, this wasn’t just any capricious demand for a refund. Rumah Bahasa had failed…
Word of the Day: lard Noun a soft, white, semisolid fat obtained by rendering the fatty tissue of the pig Idiom of the Day: larding the sales figures Meaning: to make the sales figures seem better than they really are by including low-grade, low-quality or even non-paying customers in the data TBI Bandung, the adopted home…
Between 2009 and 2012 The British Institute, a formerly well-regarded language school in Indonesia, was taken over by a small group of people who had aided each other in embezzlement, rigging appointments in favour of their cronies and sex partners, and running visa scams where they employed completely unqualified foreigners as “English teachers” by putting…
You might remember UIC Design School, the pet project of the kids of Ning Anhar- the corrupt and nepotistic former USG Director. In 2011 she was so busy diverting TBI funds to UIC Design School (run by her own daughter) that TBI students were denied new furniture or even paint in dirty classrooms! It was…
For many years anyone who has dealt with TBI Head Office has quickly worked out that something is very wrong there. Maybe the newcomer noticed their lack of responsibility. Merchandise is out of stock every time you try and order it, and no one ever apologizes for the problem. Or sometimes people learned about the endless…
impunity NOUN [MASS NOUN] Exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action: “the impunity enjoyed by military officers implicated in civilian killings” “protesters burned flags on the streets with impunity” There are many good things about Indonesia: spicy food; friendly people who take an interest in others; volcanoes, jungles, reefs and other…
One thing that people never seem to discuss much in terms of TEFL wages and conditions is the basic economics of supply and demand. The industry, like any other, responds to the amount of labour available. If there are more Native Speaker teachers who want to live in a particular area that will exert a…
tbilanguageschool 