It was announced today that preparatory school operator G.education has taken over the Nova English school chain which filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month. Hopefully this will enable some of the staff (particularly the foreign workers) to stay in Japan despite not being paid since the end of September.
Since so many students prepaid for lessons, I really wonder how the finances of such a sitation could work. Nova must owe thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lessons to students who have already paid.
Article here.
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.
Continue Reading »