Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

The pink rabbit English School chain Nova is in the news again, this time with two stories – one about their failure to supply teachers to public schools in Osaka, and the second about the resignation of 4 of their senior executives. I have posted about the demise of Nova before, and it seems the ship is sinking slower than a Texan can form a decent sentence.

The first story, Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus, reveals how Nova has been unable to meet its’ contractual obligations to the Osaka Board of Education.

The Japanese Ministry of Education initially worked with CLAIR (the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) to set up the JET Programme which gave a great number of boards of education throughout Japan the opportunity to hire foreign assistant language teachers (ALT’s) for their students.

At the beginning of the program, these instructors were often the first westerners to live in the town or village and the program provided many Japanese people with the chance to speak with a foreigner for the first time.

Generally the program was a success, and it is still in action today, however “market forces” in recent times have meant that a reasonable number of boards of education have outsourced the hiring of ALT’s to third parties at a lower cost. In most cases this is without problem, however there have been cases of unscrupulous companies and questionable business practices leaving the students in the lurch.

Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus

OSAKA — Scandal-hit major English school operator NOVA failed to dispatch English teachers to local public schools after many teachers quit or took leave because they didn’t get paid, officials said.

By Monday, NOVA had cancelled its planned dispatch of English teachers to five municipal elementary schools and five municipal junior high schools at least once.

The education board is now considering canceling its contract with NOVA.

You can read the rest of the story here (Mainichi).

The second story is more straight-forward with 4 of Nova’s senior executives walking the plank after being unable to reach Nova President Sahashi (å…ƒSaruhashi):

Labor body hopes to grill Nova chief on pay missteps

OSAKA (Kyodo) An Osaka labor standards watchdog wants to question the president of scandal-hit English-language school chain Nova Corp. over delayed wage payments, but meanwhile four executives of the firm have resigned because they can’t get ahold of their boss, Nova said Wednesday.

The Osaka Central Labor Standards Supervision Office has quizzed foreign teachers and other Nova employees about the delays, and wants to hear from President Nozomu Sahashi, suspecting a violation of the Labor Standards Law.

A union representing Nova’s foreign teachers said the firm has failed to pay wages to some 2,000 Japanese employees since July and to about 4,000 foreign teachers since September, and wages that were supposed to have been paid on Oct. 15 are on indefinite hold.

You can read the rest of the story here (Japantimes).

One hopes for the sake of both the students and the staff that this matter is cleaned up in the not too distant future.