Nova files for bankrupcy
Posted on | October 28, 2007 | 4 Comments
Nova, the English school that I worked for for about 18 months filed for bankrupcy protection late last week. After late payment of wages in September and failed payment (so far) in October, the president, Saruhashi, was fired and replaced.
For months Nova has been heading downhill financially, primairly after a ruling from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry stopping Nova from creating new long-term contracts. Following that there was a run on the compnay as students who feared that the company might shut down rushed in to cancel their contracts and get their money (or as much of it as they could) back. Bascially this has, in escence, had the same result as a run on a bank where everybody tries to get the money out of the bank at the same time. Since the bank has lent the money out to other people, they don’t have enough to cover everybody and goes into involvency.
Currently, Nova has closed all its schools and its Multimedia center in Osaka. Although many students may lose a considerable amount of money. The teachers seem to be in far dire circumstances. There are instances of Nova, who automatically deducts rent from some teachers salaries and pays it to landlords, not paying the rent and students either being threatened or actually being kicked out. Without salary, some teachers don’t even have enough money to buy proper food.
For people in a forgien country, being stranded without money can leave them in quite a precarious position. Foreigners dont have family to fall back on and the only option could be to ask family back home for money or to go back to their home country.
With thousands and thousands of qualified English teachers now searching for jobs in Japan, finding a new job as an Englsh teacher could prove quite difficult as the number of people seeking will likely far outweight the number of jobs available.
I really feel bad for the English teachers who have been put in this position through no fault of their own.
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4 Responses to “Nova files for bankrupcy”
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October 28th, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
While there are probably some, somehow “thousands and thousands of _qualified_ English teachers” doesn’t sound like Nova…
October 28th, 2007 @ 3:46 pm
tmk >
Come on, lets not be overly cynical here. Nova has 7000 foreign employees (5000 of which are teachers). They at least have experience teaching English.
November 1st, 2007 @ 12:17 pm
I'm very sorry for the teachers too. It happened just after I got back. I'm OK since I'd used up my points before I left. But they are in quite a sticky situation. Although I'd heard a little bit about the problem I never thought it's that bad.
Some of my teachers are up to organizing private lessons for the students from their brunch(including myself). I don't have much money to spend on it but I do hope they will struggle through this rough patch.
One more thing I'm disappointed is that a lot of the people from Nova say badly or have given up on Nova very quickly just because of a business incident, even though they have touched and talked to the teachers.
I think they should notice something more important.
November 2nd, 2007 @ 3:46 am
Ken>
Its nice to hear that some teachers are pulling through.
It seems to me that generally and especially recently Nova has treated its teachers poorly. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of people have given up. The chances are there will never be another lesson at Nova.