Sean: é§å‰ç•™å­¦

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Posted by Sean:
駅前留学
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1193544541.shtml


   Major news among foreigners in Japan this weekend is that NOVA, the
   largest chain of English conversation schools, has [1]filed for
   bankruptcy and is in receivership:

     The company had been reeling from an administrative punishment
     issued in June over illegal practices, including deceiving would-be
     students with misleading advertisements.
     One focus of attention will be whether Nova's estimated 300,000
     students will be able to receive refunds for the lesson fees they
     paid in advance.
     The prepaid fees account for about 20 billion yen of the company's
     liabilities.
     Another question concerns the wages in arrears to many of about
     4,000 instructors and 2,000 other employees.
     The money owed to the employees and some other types of debts have
     a higher priority than the prepaid lesson fees in repayment from
     the outstanding company assets secured by court-appointed
     bankruptcy administrators.

   English conversation schools such as NOVA are low on the food chain.
   Their lessons aren't so much methodical instruction in English as a
   way to pick up some phrases while having structured contact with
   foreigners. Teaching jobs there tend to attract kids just out of
   college who want an easy way to live abroad for an adventurous year or
   two and then make the transition into something else.
   That means that there are a lot of teachers in their early twenties
   who haven't been paid for a month or two, don't know any Japanese, and
   are feeling seriously screwed at the moment. The Asahi reports that at
   least one job placement center in Shinjuku has set up a window to help
   NOVA employees, and the Australian government is [2]cooperating with
   Qantas Airlines to help Australian teachers get back home without
   having to pay full airfare.
   Of course, the Japanese administrative staff have been [3]suffering,
   too, since they've been fielding questions from both students and
   foreign teachers over refunds and wages that weren't forthcoming:

     Employees, mainly in their 20s, remained at their workplaces until
     the last moment, while many teachers had already stopped reporting
     to work over delays in salary payments. Lesson fees were also
     refunded to students who canceled their contracts with Nova. An
     employee in her 20s, who was manager of a branch in an office
     district in the Tokyo metropolitan area, said she began working for
     Nova after graduating from university as she wished to help people
     who wanted to learn English.
     ...
     She heard that the police had to be called to another branch
     because a student had become angry to the point of violence,
     apparently over a lesson contract dispute, but the headquarters
     offered no assistance in the matter. "I still told myself that I
     should hang on as long as I was getting paid," she said.
     Foreign teachers started not showing up for lessons in
     mid-September when their salary payments were delayed.
     Consequently, dozens of complaints poured in, creating chaos for
     the company's inexperienced receptionists. One staff member
     complained of not being able to afford food, while another had been
     reduced to tears every day before she finally collapsed and stopped
     coming to the office.

   It will be interesting to see whether the brand can be rehabilitated.
   More even than any of the other giant English conversation chains,
   NOVA has a McDonald's-ish image of being available everywhere at
   reliable quality. The last several months of bad publicity have
   certainly done damage, but if new management can reopen offices within
   a month or so, it may do a decent job of mollifying wound-up
   customers.
   I'm not so sure what I think of the foreign teachers who stopped
   showing up for work. On the one hand, the responsible thing to do is
   to honor your commitments and expect payment when the company irons
   out its financial affairs. On the other, companies such as NOVA have a
   history of making it very clear to foreign teachers that they're not a
   permanent part of the team and are valued chiefly as interchangeable
   cogs. The fear of permanently getting the shaft from headquarters was
   probably very real to a lot of them, even in cases in which their
   local managers were doing their best to be helpful.

References

   1. http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200710270106.html
   2. http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/past/honbun.cfm?i=AT1G2700J%2027102007&g=MH&d=20071027
   3. http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071028TDY02309.htm