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Attention G-communication teachers and staff
G-Education and its parent company G-communication repeated NOVA’s pattern of broken promises when they suddenly announced the dismissals of 800 former NOVA teachers and staff who had been promised work at G-comm in January. The declaration, coming just a week after the company president publicly repeated assurances of re-employment, leaves many facing once again the…
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Foreign teachers still waiting for jobs
AUSTRALIANS are among hundreds of foreign teachers who had been hoping for fresh jobs to start the new year but remain unemployed after a firm taking over part of the collapsed Nova language school chain stopped hiring. Nova, whose schools were once ubiquitous across Japanese cities, filed for bankruptcy protection in October, leaving thousands of…
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Firm reneges on promised jobs for Nova teachers
National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, a Tokyo-based labor union [and predecessor of Zenkoku Ippan Tokyo General Union] whose ranks include many ex-Nova teachers, also decried G.education’s sudden announcement. “It was all very sudden. It was a big shock to people,” said Catherine Campbell, who is currently in charge of the Nova case at…
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The G.rinch That Stole Christmas
G.communications has gone back on its promise to hire all former NOVA teachers who apply, announcing on Christmas Eve that 600 applicants would not be rehired. Reasons given for the decision include difficulties in reopening schools, and the company’s plans to relocate the Ochanomaryugaku (interactive TV lessons) operation overseas in order to cut costs. This…
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Up to ex-NOVA 800 teachers left out in cold by new owners
Up to 800 foreign language teachers formerly employed by NOVA Corp. will not be hired by the failed English conversation school chain’s new owners. Officials at Nagoya-based G.communication Group said they are looking into finding employment for around 200 ex-NOVA teachers with affiliate companies, leaving the remaining 600 or so unemployed. G.communication Group bought out…
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‘Eikaiwa’ firms face Nova fallout
Too big, too fast, and with too little quality ? that’s the consensus view of many industry analysts on former language-school market leader Nova Corp., whose collapse left over 420,000 students and 4,000 non-Japanese instructors without an “eikaiwa” home. The Nova affair has already hurt many people: Hundreds of instructors have had to leave Japan…
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English teachers say sayonara to a not-so-super Nova
TEACHING English in Japan: a working holiday in a truly strange and different country (to those of us not Japanese); getting paid for talking your own language in a classroom; spare time and funds for culture in Kyoto, night-clubbing in Shinjuku, deep powder snow around Nagano. Or whatever. It seems so cool and out-there —…
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Nova faces long road back
With Monday marking one month since English-language school operator Nova Corp. filed for court protection, there is still no prospect of students receiving refunds on tuition fees and many Nova employees have chosen to leave their jobs. G.communication Co., a Nagoya-based language-school operator, has taken over Nova operations and resumed offering lessons at 25 branches…
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Ex-President Sahashi claims he is victim of NOVA crash
Ousted NOVA Corp. President Nozomu Sahashi told the Sunday Mainichi in an exclusive interview — the first he has given since the collapse of the English conversation chain — that “before I apologize to everybody, I want to get NOVA back on its feet.” Sahashi, 56, vanished from public view as NOVA struggled throughout the…
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Hungry Nova teachers teach for food
A labor union representing former teachers at failed Nova Corp. launched a program Saturday that enables students to pay for language lessons by buying them meals instead of paying tuition fees. Nova has closed its schools nationwide, depriving nearly 300,000 students of classes and keeping the teachers out of work and pinched for money. At…