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Nova mulls closing at least 200 school branches: sources
Nova Corp., reeling from a fraudulent-advertising scandal, is considering shutting down at least 200 out of its about 900 school branches around late September to turn around its operations, sources close to the matter said Thursday. The nation’s largest English-language school operator plans to close mainly money-losing school branches, but the company is being compelled…
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NOVA looks to shut down schools amid financial crisis
Major English language teaching chain NOVA is considering shutting down a large number of schools, it emerged on Thursday. NOVA’s income from lesson fees has decreased since the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry issued the language school a partial business suspension order over its practices. Because of this, the school is apparently pushing for…
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Teachers unpaid as company falters
HUNDREDS of foreign teachers of English in Japan were anxiously awaiting overdue wages from the Nova language school yesterday, amid speculation that the corporate giant was close to collapse. The country’s foreign workers’ union said it could “only hedge a guess that up to 3000” English teachers, many of them young Australians, went without pay…
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Nova sees sales plunge for quarter
Nova Corp., the nation’s largest language school chain, said Friday its sales for the April-June period plunged 31.9 percent to ¥9.3 billion, reflecting the difficulty the troubled firm is experiencing in luring new students. Nova’s image took a beating in June when the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ordered the Osaka-based company to partially…
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Blame it on the boss of NOVA
The NOVA chain of conversation schools — whose slogan is “ekimae ryugaku” (study abroad in front of the train station) — operates roughly half the English conversation schools in Japan. Earlier this year, in response to a stream of bitter customer complaints, the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government investigated…
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Wronged employees seek redress through mediation
…in this era of short term contracts, temporary jobs, and political shifts to the right, workers, foreign or otherwise, should remember they have rights and their employer has responsibilities. Unions, which only exist due to the support of their members, can point workers the way to “assen” mediation, a special labor disputes court, and, if…
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Diplomat rues Tokyo’s ‘lack of humanity’ to asylum-seekers
What are the prospects for Japan accepting more refugees? Prolonged recession has undermined the context for reception of foreigners, and Japan has a poor record on integrating foreign workers properly. It is hard for the public, media and government to differentiate between the mixture of refugees, economic migrants and criminals seeking entry. And very often…
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H.I.S. may come to Nova’s aid
Major travel agency H.I.S. Co. is considering extending assistance to the scandal-tainted Nova Corp. language school chain in the form of a business tieup or financial assistance, sources said Monday. H.I.S. Chairman Hideo Sawada met with Nova President Nozomu Sahashi late last month in Tokyo to ask about Nova’s financial conditions, according to the sources.…
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Travel agency H.I.S. eyes alliance with struggling Nova
Major travel agency H.I.S. Co. may form an alliance with Nova Corp., the English conversation school operator struggling under a government order to partially suspend operations, sources said. H.I.S., known for its sales of discount airline tickets, is leaning toward providing financial support to the nation’s largest conversational English school in return for a chance…