Parents demand refunds from school over alleged deception

In September 2008, Sungkono Sadikin wrote a letter to Kompass complaining about the deception practiced by BPK Penabur in its so-called 'International School' in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.

I doubt that he received much joy, but then his complaints were centred around the lack of qualifications of the staff and that he didn't get the 'service' he expected as, it appeared, the management were "arogan".

That is not unexpected as this thread amplifies.

Today, I was pleasantly surprised* to read the following article in the Jakarta Post.

Having spent thousands of dollars registering his 6-year-old son at BPK Penabur International School in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, in 2008, businessman David Wongso was expecting to see his son’s education handled by professionals, he says.

However, David began to question the school’s credibility over the next few months when he found extensive English grammatical errors in his son’s worksheets from the school.

“Initially I just thought it was typos, but when I saw similar mistakes happening again over the following days I realized there could be something wrong with the quality of the school’s teachers,” he said.

David was among three parents who reported the 60-year-old BPK Penabur institution last year to police for deception.

After registering his son at the institution’s newly opened international school, David said he had felt deceived at information presented in the school’s promotional leaflet and magazine advertisement.

According to the ad and pamphlet, the school held a license from Cambridge University to apply its international curriculum. While the school did employ several native-English-speaking teachers, the claim about the license was not true, he said.

“After we checked the school’s status with the Cambridge representative for the Asia-Pacific region, we were surprised to find that it hadn’t got their official license yet,” he said, adding that he and 17 parents of first-grader students had subsequently requested the school return their money.

David had spent a total of US$5,700 — comprising $3,000 for an entrance fee and $2,700 for 9 months’ tuition.

The request, however, was rejected, forcing most of the parents to keep their children enrolled at the school.

It was only David and three other parents who finally moved their children to another school in early 2009.

BPK Penabur chairman Robert Robianto, however, said it was impossible for the school to return the parents’ money because it was their decision to register their children at the school.

He also denied allegations that the school had no license to run a Cambridge-based curriculum, saying it had secured a license for their international school in Tanjung Duren, West Jakarta, in 2006.

“We also secured [a Cambridge] license for our international school in Kelapa Gading,” he told the Jakarta Post.

Hasyim Widhiarto, Jakarta Post

Three years ago, Ukrida Penabur Internasional, the programme employing expatriate teachers in Jakarta, there were but two qualified school teachers out of  around 16 'teachers'. and not all even had the minimal qualification of a Certificate of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (CTEFL), which takes a mere five weeks to obtain.

Furthermore, Penabur does not have an international school per se. For that, they need approval from the country which sponsors it. In Jakarta, there are British, Japanese, French, German, Australian, New Zealand, Korean and Pakistani International Schools, and probably a few I've overlooked, whose staff may well have diplomatic passports.

It is largely irrelevant that Penabur has a licence from Cambridge University. This only gives permission to use a specific overseas curriculum. There are several good schools which have such a licence, but they are properly known as National Plus schools and to be acknowledged as such should meet the stringent criteria supervised and certified by the Association of National Plus Schools, as well as the overseas licence provider.

Unless Penabur has taken drastic steps in the past three years and grown substantially since establishing "international classes" which were embedded in and used the facilities of the already established schools in Tanjung Duren and Kelapa Gading, then they have no right to call themselves National Plus Schools, let alone label what they do as "International".
......................
*I say that I was pleasantly surprised only because it enhances my own case regarding the unfair dismissal of a colleague and I some three years ago. We won but are still awaiting the payout awarded by the Supreme Court.

Our lawyers have informed us that Penabur wish to continue their fight against us, even though there is no avenue for appeal, let alone grounds.

Whereas David Wongso is pursuing his case through police channels, we are considering a civil case as we have documentary evidence of visa and contract irregularities, tax avoidance, and intimidation of staff - both local and expatriate - as well as the financial deception of university students.

You would be hard-pressed to find any parents or staff connected with Penabur who do not have a measure of grievance.The few who don't are those whose charges win 'prestigious' prizes in various competitions and do well in the mechanical, knowledge-based multi-choice tests.