We have heard for some months that not only has Mariam been fired- ahem, we mean resigned from TBI-but that her previous partner in crime- ahem, we mean advisor, Luke Preece– has been banished from TBI Bandung and Jakarta. He hadn’t been seen in the schools there for many months, much to the relief of…
Well, this isn’t the first time we have been here, is it? Stories that Mariam Kartikatresni had resigned / been fired from TBI have been a dime a dozen. Regular readers of this blog will recall that Mariam was deposed as TBI Director in June 2011 and replaced by Pak Toni, the former head of…
We have decided to start focusing on Mariam Kartikatresni again. The legendary narcissist and dragon lady terrorized TBI for years, causing dozens upon dozens of subordinates to quit TBI over the years. This was a woman who would forget to give people targets or guidelines and then fly into a narcissistic rage when things didn’t…
One of the things that has been so eye-opening about the whole multi-language school fiasco is how little it bothers most people, least of all the Indonesian police or the Ministry of Education. There have been many thousands of people defrauded of hundreds or even thousands of dollars each, with the total losses clearly running…
Well, even for jaded, cynical TBI observers such as ourselves, we are surprised by just how low their fortunes have sunk. In recent weeks they have started once again advertising or teachers on online jobs websites, notably Dave’s ESL Cafe. There are now two successive teachers who have come onto the discussion forum and revealed…
Posted: Thu May 07, 2015 5:47 am Post subject: UPDATE: Just did the interview! Concerning the KITAS, he echoed almost exactly what you said here. He said the Indonesian government has greatly reduced the number of visas they issue, and because the process itself takes months, other schools (he mentioned a couple by name) have…
Since 2013 there have been a number of high-profile newcomers to the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) scene in Indonesia. Many of these have attracted large bodies of students, showing that there is ever more money to be made from offering English courses to Indonesia’s young population. We will focus on four language…
As we made clear in Parts 1 and 2, TBI (The British Institute) has long blamed its recruitment woes on the Education Ministry regulation that English teachers in Indonesia need to have a degree in English or Applied Linguistics or a Masters of TESOL. They have long portrayed themselves as the victims of unfair and…
In the past few days, a teacher has come on Dave’s ESL Cafe and made some damning revelations about Scott Martin of TBI. The teacher has alleged that Scott Martin lied to him that teaching on business visas was ”a grey area” in terms of legality. This is another bare-faced lie from Scott Martin, the…
In a previous post I mentioned Black Swan Theory, which was introduced by Lebanese mathematician Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book, “The Black Swan.” In this post I aim to look at the extent to which the English degree requirement could be considered to be a black swan event. More specifically I want to examine…
tbilanguageschool 