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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…
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NZ teacher $8000 out of pocket after collapse of language school
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…
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Nova fall just simple math: it bled red
MISMANAGEMENT IN DEFIANCE OF MARKET REALITY A 330-sq.-meter office with a double bed, sauna and tea room was where Nozomu Sahashi, ousted president of Nova Corp., worked as the language school chain steadily teetered near bankruptcy over the past few years. Unveiled to the media last week, the spacious presidential suite on the 20th floor…
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Osaka Labor Bureau to report NOVA, ex-boss Sahashi to public prosecutors
The Osaka Labor Bureau has decided to send documents to public prosecutors accusing collapsed English school NOVA and its former president, Nozomu Sahashi, of violating the Labor Standards Law by failing to pay workers’ wages. The bureau has obtained information on NOVA’s financial status from a preservation administrator for the firm, and is continuing an…
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In Japan, Teaching English for Food
When Natasha Steele came to Japan from her native Australia earlier this year to teach English, she was looking forward to immersing herself in a foreign culture while earning a little money on the side. Now, after the spectacular collapse of her employer, Japan’s biggest English language school chain, Steele has found herself jobless, threatened…
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Ex-pat English teachers stranded by collapse of Japan’s Nova schools
In a country teeming with cute cartoon characters, few are cuter or better known than the Nova bunny. The pink mascot stood in the doorways of language schools across Japan, promising a short educational encounter with an exotic foreigner. But now, thousands of teachers and students have found that the bunny bites, hard. The collapse…
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Ex-NOVA boss questioned for breaking Labor Standards Law
Nozomu Sahashi, the founder of the failed NOVA Corp., has been questioned for breaking the Labor Standards Law by failing to pay his employees, government sources said. Officials of the Osaka Labor Bureau of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry questioned Sahashi, 56, last Monday. They are considering whether to file a criminal complaint with…
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Nova burns out
The tragedy of the English-teaching company Nova is a gripping and revealing one. That students should have their fees returned and teachers and staff be given their salaries should go without saying. That the company had serious management and leadership problems should be equally obvious. Still, the Nova episode is reason to consider several aspects…
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Former Nova boss oblivious to people’s anguish
On [deposed Nova Corp. president Nozomu Sahashi’s] desk sat the company’s mascot–the bright pink Nova usagi, a bunny with long ears and the beak of a bird. The ears and the beak are said to symbolize the basics of mastering a foreign language, which are to listen a lot and speak a lot. The animal…