WANTREPRENEURS

Last time we saw what red flags the wantrepreneur types tend to show. This time, I would like to address the unseen victims of these failed businesses when they are funded enough to have employees or even clients, at times thousands of them. I like to explain the tale of Basari School, the company that according to its owner, had “grown too fast”.

In the early 2000s, one of the fastest-growing wine “cram schools” in Turkey had decided to their school which seemed like a good idea at the time.  If they had more control over the children outside of the few hours a day, then they could increase their test scores even further. They advertised like crazy, and they had a few years of student test results to back it up. However, it is impossible to tell if the success of the students was because of the cram school, or if was it because they managed to give generous scholarships to students that were already successful. The public could not tell the difference; all they knew was this school was getting successful students and it was expensive, a perfect recipe for an educational con. They even had foreign teachers which was a huge privilege. What compliance goes wrong? For about 5 years nothing did. That was until the bills started coming due, and banks no longer cared about “growth.” They wanted to see the cash.  I had won a partial scholarship there and went there. In the first year, it was just like it was advertised —  foreign teachers, fancy uniforms, lots of schoolwork, cutting-edge facilities, etc. At the end of my first year, there were rumors that teachers were not being paid, and that some were no longer coming to class, getting substitutes instead. No official information everything was hush-hush. The owner was known to be an angry man who fires staff and expels students at the slightest provocation.   At the start of my 2nd year (7th grade), the cracks began to show. Teachers not coming in became the norm, and we would simply watch TV or be left alone to our devices for the year. It was great but suspicious. The owner made more and more public appearances, and we would hear more and more excuses. We would see posters saying how great the company was, however, their argument seemed to be centered around how many new cram schools they opened. Parents were growing skeptical but continued to be kept in the dark. Any rumors of unattended classes or teachers not showing up would be dismissed. This was before social media —  and before the time and technology in Turkey would be viewed with skepticism and outright bans from authority.

In the end, the news broke that the owner built his educational empire on loans, coming from various sources, and paying existing loans with new ones. Rumors of mob involvement came to light. Not long afterward the school was demolished, and the lot remained empty for many years. Teachers not part of a union are left without pay, and thousands of students are left with no education. The staff ended up without jobs or pay. Others who were indirectly responsible washed their hands and testified against the owner — the only one that went to jail for fraud.  We do not hear from the media about that trillion-dollar company collapsing.  It is said that every OSHA regulation is written in blood; perhaps we should not wait long enough for every SEC regulation to be written in blood-soaked dollars.

Note: A cram school, informally called crammer and colloquially also referred to as test-prep or exam factory, is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools, or universities.