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G.communication set to reopen Nova school in Nagoya
G.communication Co., due to take over part of the business operations of failed language school operator Nova Corp., plans to reopen a Nova school in Nagoya as early as this weekend, company officials said Sunday. The Nova Kurokawa school in Nagoya’s Kita Ward would be the first Nova school to be reopened by G.communication, a…
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Nova students form group, vow to take action
About 70 former students of bankrupt language-school Nova Corp. launched the Nova Students’ Association on Saturday to organize the abandoned pupils. “Former students have been left out,” said Joji Yamabuki, 44, head of the group. “We would like to gather as many students as possible to take a joint action.” Following its establishment, the group…
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NOVA impresario used palatial presidential penthouse to pork the pick of his staff
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…
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Foreigners still dogged by housing barriers
Having arrived in Tokyo from Seoul about a year ago, Il Yeong Eun, like many foreigners who come to Japan, soon encountered a major difficulty ? housing discrimination. Il, 25, together with two South Korean friends who also came to Japan around that time, visited three real estate agencies to rent an apartment in Shinjuku…
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Nova staff briefed on details of new job offers
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…
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English teachers feel abandoned after Japanese giant collapses
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…
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Nova schools to be reopened with new jobs, fee system
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…
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Former Nova teachers struggling to get by
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…
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Japan English teachers’ hopes fall with Nova
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…
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Nova faces liquidation after sale
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…