Eikaiwa

The Jasdaq Securities Exchange has rejected a report on improvement measures submitted by trouble-hit English language company NOVA as insufficient, and instructed it to submit a new report by Oct. 19, it has been learned.

The securities exchange said NOVA had failed to sort out problem issues and points requiring improvement in a report submitted on Friday.

Jasdaq officials said that when problems were reported at NOVA, such as the delayed distribution of wages, the company should have immediately provided information to investors, but it didn’t do so until after 1 a.m. on one occasion, highlighting problems with its internal management and information disclosure systems.

Because of this, Jasdaq asked NOVA on Sept. 21 to submit a report on improvement measures by Oct. 5.

In June, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry issued a partial business suspension order against NOVA in connection with its tuition-fee practices when dealing with students who cancelled their contracts.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071006p2a00m0na034000c.html

Hundreds of Australian teachers of English in Japan should “start making contingency plans”, the Government has warned, as erratic behaviour by language school colossus NOVA this week fuelled more predictions of an impending collapse.

Dozens of foreign staff at NOVA, which employs more than 1000 Australians, have reportedly been given eviction notices because the corporate giant has failed to pay the rent on their apartments, despite in some cases deducting it from their wages.

Japanese students were in tears outside the biggest NOVA school in Fujisawa, south of Tokyo, yesterday, after arriving to find the school had been evicted from its building for defaulting on rent.

Roughly 2000 Japanese staff had yesterday not been paid by NOVA for more than a week, and some young foreign employees have gone three weeks without wages, the foreign workers union said. Several teachers told the Herald they had been forced to borrow money to eat.

One 27-year-old from Melbourne, working in Chiba, said he had been forced to eat only rice and instant miso soup for a week while waiting for his pay, which arrived two weeks late: “Many of those were one-meal-a-day affairs. We’re not loaded – a lot of us live week to week.”

NOVA controls half of Japan’s billion-dollar private English-teaching industry. It has saturated the country with 925 schools – but has recently admitted it will have to close more than 200 of them – and employs 5000 foreigners, more than any other Japanese company.

But a combination of overexpansion and corporate fraud has brought the giant chain to the brink of collapse. If it goes under, it will become the country’s biggest corporate casualty, leaving thousands of foreigners jobless and without visas.

CEO Nozomu Sahashi was due to make an announcement yesterday, prompting rumours that NOVA could be partially bought out, but he has postponed the statement until next week. Company spokesman Yoshiyuki Kurabe denied that schools were being kicked out of their offices, and said that NOVA was “implementing measures to provide a stable environment for its students”.

Even as the Australian Embassy in Tokyo was telling anxious callers to “start making contingency plans”, NOVA was bringing out new teachers last week.

However, the Australian Asia Centre for Education Exchange released a terse statement on its website last Monday to say: “AACE no longer conducts recruitment on behalf of Nova Group in Japan.”

Natasha Steele, a 25-year-old from Sydney who has been teaching for NOVA at Fujisawa for nine months, was kicked out of her apartment after the company failed to pay the rent.

Another teacher, 24-year-old Jerry Johnston from the US working in Takamatsu, said he had been given an eviction notice despite the fact NOVA had deducted the rental money from his wages. “Why hasn’t the Japanese government intervened yet? It’s been going on for weeks.”

A spokesman for the National Union of General Workers said that “there are 400,000 students who might not get thousands of yen in tuition fees back. It would be like a bank going down, with no guarantees or security for the investors”.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/nova-collapse-feared/2007/10/05/1191091359494.html

Despite possible closure of 300 schools, company that recruits Canadian teachers from universities still hiring

by David Jobson

Nova Group of Japan, the largest private language school in Japan, has encountered serious financial and legal problems. But that hasn?t stopped the company from hiring Canadian students to teach in Japan.

Nova ? the largest employer of migrant workers in Japan, with more than 5,000 overseas teachers at over 900 schools ? has faced a series of government actions and court decisions against its operations over the past two years. The result has been employees going unpaid and the possibility of 300 schools closing by October 2007. Nova employs 668 Canadians, according to Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Bernard Nguyen.

?We already have teachers who were not paid, and the summer bonus for staff was not paid. Half the teachers were paid four days late,? said deputy secretary general Louis Carlet of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo South which represents hundreds of unionized Nova teachers. ?And Nova has apparently issued an order not to pay teachers who quit.?

The corporation was first hit by scandal in 2005 when the Social Insurance Agency of Japan launched a government probe against Nova for selling teachers private accident insurance in lieu of enrolling employees into the Japanese government?s mandatory National Health Insurance Program.

Then in April 2007, the Supreme Court of Japan ruled that Nova?s student tuition refund policy was invalid and in violation of commercial transaction laws. This led to Japan?s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry imposing a temporary six-month ban in June 2007 against Nova from signing up any long-term students. Days later, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare cancelled its government contracts with Nova which had earned the corporation over $16 million since 1999.

However, even before the government penalties were imposed, Nova had reported a $25-million loss in operating profits for fiscal 2006 and that student enrolment would be 19.2 per cent less in September 2007 than in September 2006.

With the ship sinking, Nova stopped paying the rent on some teachers? housing.

?Many landlords are beginning court proceedings against Nova,? said Carlet. ?We?ve had Nova employees say that they?ve received apartment eviction notices for apartments that Nova is supposed to be paying rent on.?

However, Nova was still advertising recruitment sessions in Canada on the Workopolis website as recently as Aug. 28.

Despite the health insurance scandal of 2005, many Canadian universities continued to allow Nova to recruit on campus, including UVic. UVic Career Services confirmed that Nova had been recruiting last year and said it?s the student?s responsibility to know whether the companies on their website are on the rocks or obeying the law.

?We just don?t have the resources or ability to do pre-screening ahead of time for any employers,? said Career Services manager Jennifer Margison. ?As long as the conditions of the employment, as the information is provided to us, seems reasonable ? then basically we will post it.?

She said Career Services are unaware of employment standards oversees.

?If it?s overseas, those [laws] are all different, and we really don?t know what the standards are in those locations,? she said.

Margison also said that Career Services reacts to student complaints but does not monitor employers. She suggested that students check the National Union of General Workers website or the General Union?s website for information on Nova Group.

Career Services is a member of the Canadaian Association of Career Educators and Employers (CACEE) and abides by that organization?s ethics policies. Anne Markey, CACEE executive director, said the policy has ?not had to do with companies going bankrupt previously, [but that could change].?

However, the policy of university career centres is a concern to one overseas recruiter in B.C.

?When we first started seven years ago, many of the career centres were happy with any overseas opportunity. Now, career centres are taking more of a responsible approach to what they are presenting their students,? said Jeff Strachan of Footprints Recruiting. ?Recruiters who don?t have licences should be shut down because there are certain standards in B.C. that employment agencies must be compliant with.?

But Margison said that would prevent international recruiting. ?I don?t think any of the international employers would be registered [employment agents],? she said.

Another challenge to those considering work overseas is that the B.C. Employment Standards Act does not protect interviewees from dishonest overseas recruiters. There is no legislation that would allow a person to take legal action against Nova if they lied about work conditions or the financial situation of the company.

Pat Cullinane, director of employment standards with the B.C. Ministry of Labour, explained, ?If you have someone recruiting for out-of-province work, [misrepresenting the terms of employment] is not likely to be governed by the Employment Standards Act.?

?I think it is terrible teachers will spend thousands of dollars coming over to Japan, and then work for a month and not get paid,? said Carlet. ?Nova will either officially go bankrupt or just kind of let things fall apart and not officially declare bankruptcy ? which would be even worse for teachers.?

Nova Group Canada Branch Manager, Colette Neville, refused to comment.

http://www.martlet.ca/view.php?aid=39734

NOVA, Japan’s biggest chain of English language conversation schools is feeling the pinch, and it’s struggling to pay its biggest asset — foreign teachers, Weekly Playboy (10/15) says.

NOVA was supposed to pay its instructors on Sept. 15, but hundreds still hadn’t received their wages 10 days later and some may have still yet to get their due remuneration even now.

NOVA’s problems began in April when the Supreme Court ruled its repayment methods when students cancelled contracts were illegal and two months later the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry suspended some of its operations.

But now, the chain of schools is hurting — itself, its employees and its paying customers.

“NOVA has been flooded by requests to cancel contracts from students worried about its future and its shortage of capital,” Katsuji Yamahara, head of the multinational General Union to which many foreign NOVA instructors belong, tells Weekly Playboy. “Some schools have had to be shut down because they don’t have the money to run. I guess that’s also been behind the late payments to the foreign teachers.”

Many of the roughly 5,000 NOVA teachers are furious at the way they’ve been treated.

“Our payday is the 15th of every month. Sept. 15 was a Saturday, so they were supposed to pay us the day before. But the only people paid on the 14th were some instructors in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka. I didn’t get paid,” a NOVA instructor of seven years experience tells Weekly Playboy. “After that, they told us by e-mail that they’d definitely pay on the 19th. But there was nothing. Then they said the 21st, but nothing again. Then they came out and said they’d pay on the 25th after the long weekend, but it still didn’t come through. They just keep telling us all these lies.”

Another NOVA teacher adds the problem is not just unpaid wages. For many of its foreign instructors, NOVA borrows an apartment on their behalf, deducts the rent from their pay packet and pays the landlord directly.

“But NOVA has been deducting the rent from our pay and then not handing it over to the landlords,” the teacher tells the weekly. “Some landlords have been telling teachers to get out of their apartment by the start of October.”

Foreign teachers are the biggest asset an English conversation school can have in Japan. Many NOVA employees have already fled to other popular conversation school chains. But those who stay at NOVA are being drastically overwhelmed by student numbers and demand is enormous. Students, in turn, are complaining because they can’t get classes as easily as they had been told it would be. Further reductions in teacher numbers are likely to hurt the chain even more.

Weekly Playboy says it repeatedly contacted NOVA for a comment about the situation but was constantly told that a reply would be forthcoming “tomorrow.” Each time tomorrow became today, the response was identical. Phone calls to the company always got a busy tone. After 5 p.m., the engaged signal was replaced by a recorded message.

Union boss Yamahara is hardly bullish about NOVA’s future.

“They’ll close more schools because they can’t pay the rent. Teachers will quit because they haven’t been paid. It’s in a truly downward spiral,” he says. “NOVA has always sold itself on being cheap and convenient. To be honest, though, I don’t think there are really many options open for NOVA from now on.”

While the foreign teachers are languishing, NOVA’s president Nozomu Sahashi is sitting back on a personal fortune estimated to be several hundred million yen, a fund the weekly suggests he should consider tapping into to pay his teachers’ wages. The teachers certainly like the idea.

“I’ve got workmates who can’t pay their transport costs. They can’t come to work because they haven’t got the money for their train fare. Other teachers have to eat cup noodles three times a day because they haven’t got the money for any other food,” a foreign NOVA teacher tells Weekly Playboy. “F**k you, Sahashi. Hurry up and pay!” (By Ryann Connell)

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/culture/waiwai/news/20071004p2g00m0dm004000c.html

THOUSANDS of Australians in Japan face the prospect of no jobs and no accommodation amid growing fears the country’s largest English conversation school is on the brink of collapse.

Nova, the bulk of whose 5000-strong foreign workforce is Australian, might go bankrupt as early as November, Tokyo-based business consultant Ken Worsley said.
The company’s Australian head office, in Brisbane, has stopped recruiting and warned those already offered positions against going to Japan.

“We strongly suggest all applicants delay their departure until the situation in Japan becomes clearer,” Nova Brisbane spokesman Simon Thomas said.

Nova, already reeling from a $US45 million ($50 million) loss between April and June, is experiencing a disastrous cash-flow situation, with a flood of students cancelling lesson packages and demanding refunds.

The company’s public image in Japan was shattered in June when it was slapped with a government penalty for false advertising.

Late salary payments and lack of communication from top Nova management have rankled its mostly foreign staff.

A 31-year-old Brisbane woman who works in Nova middle management in Osaka said teachers and students had no confidence in the company.

“Basically, middle management is not being provided with any information as to why we’re being paid late,” she said.

She said 300 eviction notices had been served to teachers living in Nova-sponsored apartments, with the company deducting rents from their salaries but not passing them on to landlords.

Despite the company’s woes, Nova’s Osaka office this week approved eight Sydney instructors for positions in Japan.

However, Mr Thomas said about 30 prospective recruits from Australia and New Zealand had been warned against accepting positions.

“We did have some people who arrived in Japan last month and they were all told we thought it was in their best interests not to go, and if they were to go they should take extra funds and be prepared for the worst,” he said.

“There are still some people, who, despite our very strong warnings, have still decided to go as scheduled in October.”

Louis Carlet, of Japan’s National Union of General Workers, said Nova employees faced a six-month wait to recover lost wages if the company went bankrupt.

Nova’s teacher salaries, which range from about $33,000 a year, are paid monthly in retrospect.

Australian-based staff are among those yet to be paid this month’s salary.

A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said the effect of Nova’s financial difficulties on Australians was “a private legal matter for the parties involved.

However, consular officials could help those affected contact relatives, friends and lawyers in Japan, he said.

Nova claims a 46 per cent share of Japan’s lucrative English conversation school market but has posted multi-million dollar losses for the last three years.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22508420-953,00.html

A COMPANY that employs thousands of Australians in Japan is still recruiting English teachers in Sydney despite failing to pay its staff for more than 12 days.

Japanese language company Nova, which claims to have up to 5000 Australian employees, has yet to explain the delay in payments. Australian teachers say they fear eviction from their homes and some are refusing to work until they are paid.

The company?s Brisbane office said this morning some teachers had been paid, but trainers were yet to receive their money. They refused to comment on the reason for the delay.

Nova was plunged into financial crisis in mid-June, when the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ordered the company to suspend part of its business for six months for lying to consumers about its services when soliciting students. In the wake of the scandal many students cancelled their enrolment and Nova was forced to provide generous refunds.

In Osaka this week, 50 foreign workers, including Australians, took to the streets in protest, demanding their pay and calling for the resignation of the company CEO Nozomu Sahashi. Many trainers stopped working in protest until their salary is paid.

Nova failed to pay its foreign workers on September 14. Six days later, the Sydney office held a live web chat recruiting more staff, encouraging potential teachers to apply for the 2008 recruitment program, but making no mention of the salary problems.

Nova told one candidate: “We will send a package of employment and visa documents to be completed to start the process of getting you to Japan!”

Similar chats were also held in Boston and San Francisco as recently as Monday 24th September, 10 days after it failed to pay staff on time.

Nova currently operates 900 schools in Japan, but sources say they plan to cut up to 200 schools, making hundreds of Australian staff redundant.

According to blog posts, teachers in Nova-managed accommodation have received eviction warnings over unpaid rent despite the fact the company was deducting rent money from employees? salaries.

The company?s financial problems have dominated expatriate web forums in Japan with many worried the company is about to go bankrupt.

“Still no pay for TIs. That’s 12 days late now and it doesn’t look like they’ll be paid today either … Looks like they really are going under,” wrote contributor ?leathers? on the Japan Today forum.

“I don’t plan to work for free,” a 33-year-old Australian said.

“I’m sorry for the inconveniences caused to the students,” he said. “It’s too bad, because we want to keep the students at Nova. But the stress teachers are under, I think, is affecting the lesson quality.”

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22491114-662,00.html

A labor union will ask a governmental labor inspection office to demand troubled English school NOVA pay its teachers their delayed wages.

NOVA started to delay paying wages to its Japanese staff members in late July, and has been late paying its foreign teachers since Sept. 14, General Union officials said.

[Tokyo Nambu’s sister union] the General Union in Osaka will formally ask the Osaka Chuo Labor Standard Inspection Office on Thursday to demand NOVA pay delayed salaries.

The union recently sent a letter to the president of NOVA and asked him to promptly pay staff wages. The letter demanded a reply by Sept. 26, but the company told the union to wait until Oct. 5 for an answer.

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070927p2a00m0na002000c.html

Four people who canceled their English-language lesson contracts with Nova Corp. filed a lawsuit against the language school with the Kyoto District Court on Wednesday, demanding refunds totaling about 2.45 million yen in tuition for unattended classes.

Ten other former Nova students also filed a lawsuit with the court on the same day, demanding that the school refund about 4.1 million yen.

The case marks the first time the firm has been sued by a group of its former students.

According to the suit, the four plaintiffs, who attended Nova schools in Kyoto and other cities, were encouraged by the school’s employees to purchase additional points that would allow them to carry over previously earned points past their expiration dates.

Each of the students purchased 150 points at about 2,000 yen per point between January 2005 and September 2006.

However, when they asked Nova to cancel the contracts after August 2006, the school did not refund the money for the carried-over points.

The plaintiffs claim Nova is obligated to refund the fees for classes they did not attend, according to a law concerning special business dealings.

Meanwhile, the other 10 plaintiffs are demanding that Nova refund them 180,000 yen to 700,000 yen each in canceled class fees.

Although the contracts were cancelled, many of the plaintiffs have received no refunds, while the others have received less than they expected.

A Nova spokesman said: “It’s regrettable the cases were brought to court despite our sincere efforts. We’d like to handle the matter fairly after confirming the details of the suits.”

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070927TDY04003.htm