What is your assessment of how much damage Helmy V. did to TBI Kelapa Gading?
I think the school’s reputation was already badly damaged by the previous manager, BF. School numbers had peaked in 2006 at 360 students at TBI Kelapa Gading and had fallen to 180 at points in 2008. The people of Kelapa Gading realized that TBI Kelapa gading was a poor school with low standards. In short, losing half a school is not an accomplishment BF can be proud of.
But having said, Helmy was many times worse than BF. He probably did as much damage in a few months as BF did in two and a half years. There were groups of angry mothers coming in all the time and more often than not they pulled their kids out. By reducing the prices for Combo classes he slashed the revenue from the remaining students too. The school was losing money hand over fist. Even a year after Helmy was gone parents would still mention his name at times and say how rude he was.
He also made ludicrous promises like taking whole classes to Ancol for excursions or for trips out to donut shops and so onwhich we had to honour; he was very free with other people’s money. The one In-House customer TBI Kelapa Gading had as a client in 2009 refused to have him as a teacher because his English was so bad. Other businesses who had had dealings with her were complaining about his manner a year or more later. What Helmy V. proves is the tremendous damage the wrong person can do to a school’s image. I think that TBI Kelapa Gading had a chance to be a leading school in 2006 and it blew it. Even five years later we would hear things like, “I sent my older boy there but his grammar didn’t improve so we moved him to EF.” TBI loves to rubbish EF but I can honesly say numerous customers told me that their kids had done better a EF Kelapa Gading than they had at TBI Kelapa Gading between 2006 and 2009. And if Mariam wants to know who to blame, she can look in the mirror because she knew what Helmy had done at Semarang and she appointed him again in Kelapa Gading.
