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".
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*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.

Angry Students Write About Penabur

The following letter has been occasioned by the receipt of emails, over the past two years but several in the past month, from former students of BPK Penabur programmes. I am keeping their names confidential because, as one has written today, "if someone know that I give out this information, Penabur will do something bad for my degree, because as you know Penabur can do anything .... "

It is certainly time for the atmosphere of intimidation engendered throughout the educational establishments of BPK Penabur, among teachers, students - but not, thankfully, parents (see below) - to cease.
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Greetings former students of Penabur.

Many of you may not know that I have been involved in a legal case for two years against BPK Penabur for unfair dismissal. Depnaker (the Department of Manpower) in our favour, but the judge at Pengadilan Hubungan Industrial (the Industrial Relations Court) overturned the ruling, a surprise as this is almost unprecented. We are now waiting for the Supreme Court to overturn the PHI ruling and find in our favour - again.

You can read about the case here in Bhs. Indonesia and here in English:

What is sad, but an indication that Penabur is not well-managed, is that there are many teachers, both local and Indonesian who have been treated badly by BPK Penabur, who have also had to follow the legal route.

I know of teachers, both local and expat, who have ended up in hospital following their very bad treatment by the BPK Board, and of another teacher who had to sell his house in order to sponsor his own visa ~ UPI refused to process his exit permit or pay for the work he had already done.

Not one teacher ever leaves Penabur happy. Happy to leave, yes, but only because of the very unhappy situation they find themselves in, and very rarely, if ever, on mutually agreeable terms.

Not only teachers, but parents and, especially, you have been lied to, generally in the name of 'profitability'. To me, a lifelong educator, I find this to be both cynical and unforgivable, especially coming from an organisation which claims to be Christian. (Remember the story of Jesus and the moneylenders - Mathew 21.)

I have received emails from you, not only expressing disappointment at my dismissal, but also saying that you had misgivings about Penabur.

Some quotes:

1. I hope that you will win the case against Penabur... because my experience as being a student of Ukrida Penabur Internasional for almost three years was completely dissapointing ....

It started from the promises from the board member of UPI association, Mr.Sonny (Hartono). He promised the students that UPI would build a new building 1 year after my enrollment to UPI....but the fact is, there is no one single building for UPI!

Second, I graduated in November 2005 from my high school; one of the reasons why I chose UPI was that they promised that they will open the Foundation degree on Feb 2006. The fact was, they postponed the program until June 2006, ...so they lied to me for the second time....

Third, when I entered, UPI promised us that they will give native and expat lecturers, but we had many more local lecturers rather than native... the comparison is 1 native lecturer and 5 local ones, so we didn't really experience an International Environment like UPI promised to the Students and Parents.

2. All the foundation students don't agree with the increasing for tuition fees .... because at the first time we join the UPI, Chris (the former head of Curtin Uni sponsored programme) said that there would not be any raise. UPI increases the tuition fee, but they doesn't improve the fasilities such as computer access and student lounge ..... The Internet connection is also very bad ..... I don't know why they are doing this to the students.....

3. Our Accounting lecturer was an ex-pilot and had no experience in teaching but there he was.

I heard that Curtin wanted their students to move to Curtin Perth or Sydney on their third year, but UPI refused to cooperate and they said their students have to finish their studies here, unless the students actually wanted to move there. Thus, Curtin decided to cooperate with INTI College here instead.

4. From a former Senior High School student, now working in the USA.
I was disappointed to some of their decisions on P321 and PPBS. Other than that, they do need some serious wake up calls. I really hope you win this case.
(P3-21 -> Program Pembinaan Pemimpin - Abad 21 -> Leadership guidance program for 21st century.
PPBS -> Program Pembinaan Bakat Siswa -> Student talent guidance program.)
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If any of you still have grievances against Penabur, I would like to hear from you and I will respect your privacy and confidentiality. You can email me here.

Anyway, now that you are no longer a Penabur student, I hope that your studies and life are to your satisfaction.

Best wishes.

J
PS. Please feel free to pass this email on to former Penabur/UPI students

An Angry Parent Writes to Kompas

Now parents are beginning to realise that BPK Penabur prioritises income from student fees above educational standards.

Search for 'Penabur' in the Kompas archives and you'll find loads of stories about prize-winning students. Interestingly, the proprietor of Kompas, the respected Jakob Oetomo, started his journalistic career on the tabloid Penabur back in the 50's. That is why I'm surprised at the publication of this letter from a parent.

Dikecewakan BPK Penabur Internasional

Permasalahan diawali saat mendaftarkan anak saya untuk melanjutkan sekolah di kelas VII di Sekolah BPK Penabur Internasional Kelapa Gading, Jakarta Utara, tahun ajaran 2008/2009.

Saat pendaftaran pihak sekolah memberikan spesifikasi/keterangan/janji, antara lain proses belajar berlangsung hingga pukul 12.00 untuk sertifikasi Cambridge saja, atau pukul 14.00 bagi yang mengikuti pelajaran tambahan sesuai muatan lokal.

Guru yang mengajar adalah native speaker atau ekspatriat dengan sertifikasi Cambridge. Jumlah guru adalah dua guru per kelas masing-masing satu guru utama yang native/ekspatriat dibantu satu guru lokal.

Ketika tahun ajaran dimulai saya dikejutkan dengan pelaksanaan belajar-mengajar yang baru selesai pukul 16.35 belum termasuk ekstrakurikuler setiap hari Senin hingga Jumat. Setelah dihujani protes dari para orangtua murid, kemudian sejak 1 Agustus 2008 jadwal diubah menjadi pulang pukul 15.45.

Perubahan jadwal itu dilakukan dengan cara memotong jatah waktu istirahat siswa serta jam masuk sekolah dimajukan ke 07.15 dari 07.30. Lebih parah lagi guru yang mengajar cuma satu guru/kelas dan sebagian besar bukan ekspatriat seperti yang dijanjikan. Bahkan, beberapa guru tidak dapat berkomunikasi lisan secara baik dalam bahasa Inggris sebagaimana seharusnya di sekolah yang menggunakan kurikulum Cambridge dan menyatakan dirinya sekolah internasional.
Dalam perbincangan lewat telepon (15/8), Bapak Yadi dari yayasan dengan arogan menyatakan, memang mulai bulan Maret 2008 telah diputuskan tidak ada lagi sistem dua guru per kelas.

Ini tindakan sewenang-wenang setelah menerima uang registrasi (dibayarkan Februari 2008) sekian banyak terus melakukan perubahan sepihak tanpa mengindahkan janji yang diberikan pada saat penerimaan siswa. Ternyata yayasan/sekolah menghalalkan semua cara untuk mendapatkan siswa.

Sungkono Sadikin
Vila Permata Gading G 17, Jakarta