Category: Eikaiwa

Nozomu Sahashi, the ousted president of NOVA Corp., was getting into some bunnies a bit different to the stuffed toy symbol of the struggling English conversation school chain, Sunday Mainichi (11/18) says. Sahashi, 56, had decked out a secret room attached to the President’s Office at NOVA headquarters in Osaka’s Naniwa-ku with a Jacuzzi, sauna…

Failed English-language school chain Nova Corp. held briefings in Tokyo and Osaka on Friday for about 200 of the firm’s management-level employees, detailing the procedures required to gain reemployment with G.education Co. Interviews for the firm’s employees wishing to work for G.education, based in Nagoya, which will take over Nova’s operation, were also conducted by…

For years Japan has welcomed English teachers such as Kristen Moon with open arms to fill its many language schools but when industry giant Nova collapsed they found themselves on their own. Critics say the fiasco has exposed the lack of an adequate safety net for foreign workers in Japan, even as the world’s second-largest…

Nagoya-based G.communication Group will begin offering lessons at 30 Nova branches from next week, in the first stage of a plan to take over operations at 200 branches of the failed English-language school chain over the coming year, it was learned Wednesday. G.communication will reopen the schools using the established Nova brand name and also…

Jessica Crichton, 23, and Hilary Keyes, 24, former teachers of failed language school chain Nova Corp., sat on the floor of their shared apartment in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, eating bowls of instant ramen–their first and only meal of the day. “I can’t tell my mom in Canada about this situation,” Crichton said with tears in…

About 750,000 Japanese paid for evening and weekend language lessons last year, nearly two-thirds of them through Nova. Teaching English in Japan, a popular first job for western university graduates, has become dicier proposition. Nova, the dominant force in Japan’s $1.2bn-a-year private language-teaching business, has filed for court protection from creditors after scandals and lawsuits…

No refunds offered in partial deal Nova Corp.’s court-appointed administrators plan to sell 30 of the failed language school chain’s 670 branches to G.communication grp. and liquidate the rest, making tuition refunds very unlikely. Nagoya-based G.communication, which also runs cram schools and restaurants, said the takeover would happen immediately with an eye to resuming lessons…

A New Zealander in Japan was forced to dip into his savings and move house after a “tightening up on photocopy paper and lightbulbs” tipped him off that the country’s largest chain of English language schools was in financial trouble. Cole Cameron, who moved to Japan 18 months ago to work for Nova, said he…