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NOVA Has declared bankrupcy
Katchem_ash
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NOVA the english teaching school in Japan has declared bankruptcy which has left many in a tough spot:
the link http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1030/p04s01-woap.html
What are your opinions? Mine is that well, its sad and I'll bet it will force more pressure on other companies to handle the applicatants. However it opens the way for new companies to step forward. Personally, I wanna work in Japan via my company which does have a branch and I have applied via HR and have to give a Japanese test, but if I wanted to be a teacher it would be harder now.
Tokyo - Twenty years ago, native English speakers in Japan used to joke that they could make $100 an hour as an ESL teacher because they speak "a" language.
These days, teachers feel as if the joke is on them. Some 4,000 foreign teachers are without jobs and are owed $4,000 in back pay after Japan's largest school chain, Nova Corp., closed its 900 schools last week, declared bankruptcy, and failed to pay refunds to its 400,000 students.
The collapse of Nova might not just be Japan's largest consumer story this year. Foreign embassies, Qantas Airlines, and local unions and media are rallying behind students and teachers, who Sunday night set up a "Nova Relief Fund" to help hundreds evicted on short notice from apartments supplied by Nova. "We just need to think about the 1,300 Australians who are suddenly finding themselves out on the street there in Japan," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer.
Nova's demise is also illuminating Japan's worsening reputation for its dealings with thousands of skilled Western workers who, despite speaking Japanese and raising Japanese children, are denied voting rights, tenure at universities, promotions, and contracts beyond one-year agreements with few benefits.
An Industry Ministry survey in 2002 listed 15,800 foreign teachers and about 1 million students at private language schools such as Nova. Thousands more teach privately via networking sites such as findateacher.com, and at most public schools, with 3,800 in Tokyo alone.
"We're being treated like cheap migrant labor down in the southern United States," says Paul Baca, a young Canadian. One of thousands of "perma-temps," he has been going from job to job over the past decade. "About 99 percent of us have university degrees.... [W]e're not treated like skilled workers in other countries."
Ryan Hills quit his $18-an-hour insurance job in Indiana to fly to Tokyo in June in hopes of earning ¥260,000 (about $2,300) a month at Nova. "My flight landed, and the next day I heard about Nova on the news," says Mr. Hills. "I wanted to study Japanese language and culture but I've been too busy battling landlords and management at work."
He and his roommates from England and New Zealand were evicted after Nova didn't pay rent already deducted from their salaries. With only ¥9,000 left, he's hoping to receive an emergency loan offered by the US Embassy. "Ramen noodles are not that filling after a few days. The last job I applied for had 900 applicants. But I don't want to leave Japan. I cut off everything at home, for nothing." (FOR MORE INFO - CHECK OUT)
the link http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1030/p04s01-woap.html
What are your opinions? Mine is that well, its sad and I'll bet it will force more pressure on other companies to handle the applicatants. However it opens the way for new companies to step forward. Personally, I wanna work in Japan via my company which does have a branch and I have applied via HR and have to give a Japanese test, but if I wanted to be a teacher it would be harder now.
Katchem_ash on
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Which really only speaks to Japans distaste for gaijin / institutional racism. We treat legal immigrants perfectly well, especially when they have actual skills.
People should've been planning to get out before now.
I used to talk to people 5 years ago that Nova was doomed because of the pyramid-scheme structure.
As for the 'skilled workers', you have to have a degree for the kind of visa teachers in Japan have, but that doesn't mean the person is a skilled teacher.
Some Nova teachers are very skilled, most are not. Having experience, skills or interest in teaching was never important to Nova management.
I just wish that the people who brought about this collapse (Saruhashi, the president and other senior management) would be the ones to suffer, rather than thousands of students and teachers.
I don't think the bankruptcy of Nova has anything to do with racism rather than crappy business, and I'm not sure how the article makes the connection. Nova teachers, for example, should be able to claim the Japanese version of the dole, as they have their 'employment insurance' deducted at source.
A person is a person. We all have the right to fair treatment, but being white and degree-qualified doesn't make you more entitled than a Hispanic immigrant to the USA.
Also, legal Hispanic immigrants to the USA are in fact more entitled, apparently, then white degree having immigrants in Japan.
I never really experienced too much racism in Japan, except when people mistook me for an Arab or a Jew. Of course, Africans, Israelis and other Asians (especially Philipinos) are another story... And, of course, I never had to try and find a real job there.
~CB
Of course having a marketable skill renders you financially better off - it doesn't entitle you to any other rights. Those rights should be available to any legal immigrant.
I have no idea whether life for white people in Japan is worse than for Hispanic immigrants in the US. I know about the former, but not the latter.
I do know two things, though:
That lots of white people believe they have it harder in Japan than the immigrants back home. I have experience of immigration to the UK and Japan. Japan is easier.
Degrees should earn you money, not entitlements - whatever they are.
People with unique and valuable skills - like having doctorates or being very good at whatever they do - have a much easier time getting green cards and, by extension, citizenship.
This is how the world works. I'm Sorry.
And, as a nation of immigrants, I can tell you that the US doesn't in general discriminate against immigrants. It's actually thought of as a positive quality in a person. Now at certain points in time we have had backlash's against certain group of immigrants - the Irish, the Italian - and now Hispanics, but for the most part right now its specifically illegal immigrants that are getting the brunt of the criticism.
Of course having useful skills or qualifications is useful, and gets you visas as well as money. I thought the quote which started this was Mai-Kero's - about being treated fairly. I think we might be using the word 'entitled' differently - I was referring to things like basic rights.
I think the trouble is twofold - one that many white immigrants to Japan believe that their skills are more useful than they actually are, creating a false sense of their marketability. Secondly that many young white immigrants have a terrible... hmm... entitlement complex?
This sentence in the article,
seems to make some questionable assertions and a big leap of logic.
I totally agree here. The Japanese class I go to, the teacher actually said that they don't need anything and you can just go, you don't even need to be able to speak Japanese cause you'll most likely be a TA to a teacher.
I found this suprising. Why should just anyone go, without a degree or anything like that to teach english? Is it the LOLJapan factor?
I would recommend that the english teaching schools left, focus more on people qualified than just sending anyone.
But even if it's not so much an issue of the market not being favorable, I would imagine this will create a very tight market for a while, possibly up to and through the time period I was looking into, Summer/Fall of '09.
Nova is the only one I heard of that was so incredibly accepting. I know Aeon has a very significant number of applicants, for the space available. For me, I went to an interview in Central Texas, and we had at least 50 applicants, in this central region of one state, and Aeon takes about 1,500-1,800 teachers max from the entire U.S(or North America, I can't remember).
Like I mentioned before, Japan is racist/xenophobic as hell. It's right up there with Sweden.
The other part is, a lot of people who go over to Japan to teach are just weeaboo jackasses that think a basic understanding of two languages entitles them to teach one, without regarding the whole teaching part of teaching.
They think that, when that's what they're told by the hiring companies.
~CB
Sweden really is not that bad at all. I lived there for a year.
I mean, I'd put Germany as easily worse. Turks arnt even full citizens there.
It seems wherever you go, teachers get a raw deal.
...but yeah, we all saw this coming,and I hope she had a good backup plan in mind :P
I'd definitely say that this problem was down to NOVA - their business model was obviously flawed, and their management were almost all horrible people.
The market will be affected, but no-one knows how or for how long.
I think every English school in Japan has it's pros and cons. Try to find one whose pros you like, and whose cons don't bother you so much.
There are lots more - Berlitz, Interac, Westgate, Shane, Gaba. I'm not sure which is good or bad.
Anyway, the impression I got was they were mainly interested in selling people study materials rather than actually teaching anything. I was sort of relieved to get rejected because I know I would have done it just to go to Japan and would have hated my job. Yes, I was one of those weaboos you guys are criticizing so harshly.
Since this isn't H/A, you could also throw in some discussion of the relative merits, or hell, more on why NOVA was a giant scam.
I had a friend that was just recently hired by them a few months ago that saw this coming and did just that. He teaches English at a middle school now.
You're absolutely right. If they didn't see this coming (the head of the company kept talking about waiting for God to come bail them out) they probably deserve it.
There have been lots of news stories about NOVA recently, but their core problem hasn't been in the news.
Students pay up front for a long series of lessons. A student might pay as much as $10,000 (in a rich area) for a bunch of private kids lessons.
This cash is then taken out of that branch and used to open a new branch in a different area. There is a huge influx of cash at this new school. This cash is then used to open a new branch etc etc etc.
Very few schools made enough each month to cover their running costs. The whole thing was predicated on opening new branches. Once the market was saturated (i.e. they ran out of Japan) it was only a matter of time.
As for the other chains, I'm not sure. Getting a CELTA or TESOL qualification (about 4 weeks full-time and $1500 I'd guess) will help a lot - the places with better working conditions will require at least that. Don't assume university=good working conditions. The gaijinpot forums are a good place to look. I already mentioned JET, which is quite good to its employees, I hear.
I am an area manager and teacher-trainer for an English school chain, but we're a bit different from the others, so I don't know much about them, and I've no idea how biased my viewpoint would be.
Second, I know a good half a dozen people who have spent a significant amount of time in Japan, and each and every one of them have said that the Japanese are horribly, horribly racist. This includes my Japanese teacher. Who was Japanese.
There you go fixed it for you. I assume you don't wanna compare who's been the most racist do you? Cause a entire continent was captured for Slavery, it wasn't until recently a certain group of people were accepted and there are still some other groups not accepted. Certain people thought they were superior and thus created concentration camps and set about conquering the world for resources for "Queen and Country".
Compared that to a Country which hasn't opened up until the 16 or 17th century and went about modernizing so quickly. Of course people will feel superior, look at Americans themselves. Chanting "America #1" or "Brown People go home!" isn't racist? Yeah it is. Doesn't make it right anyway. And beside your in their country, accept their customs or don't come at all. I knew exactly what I was in for when I went and I made my way enjoying myself. Sure some people might not have liked me there but people should have thicker skin to tolerate stares.
And I would claim that more racism exists there presently, than in America, presently.
Now, the several people I've talked to about it never said it was awful, just very prevalent. Like little old grannie ladies asking racist questions without any malice or disdain apparent. I think it'd be bothersome, but not something that'd put me off from living there.
Lololol here to the American public who voted for GB II who are bible thumping "We love god, your not Christan? To hell you go" crowd. To where profiling is occuring. To where nooses are still being hung. Yep, your right, Japan has much, much more racism. I mean when is the last time your hear any Japanese pulling nooses on people?
Anyway this is way off topic.
I see this as more curious than racist actually. Maybe they haven't talked to any person in a select race and wanted to ask questions.
I mean, really, if you look at Germany, 60 years ago they were pretty much doing the same sort of shit that Japan was; they were basically in the same place, culturally speaking. And now, in comparison, things are way, way worse in Japan than Germany. And yeah, that's part of their culture, but that doesn't make it any less fucked-up, or make it okay; it's just something you have to tolerate while you're over there. I realize everything Japanese is the greatest thing in the world ever from your perspective, but you should probably realize that there are other perspectives out there, from which the Japanese may not be the best thing since sliced bread.
That said, my Japanese teachers were all really cool. This was in the USA though.
edit: in after Godwin.
Germany did a lot of soul searching and introspection after the war. Hell, it still goes on today.
Japan? Not so much.
The amount of institutional racism in that country surpasses every first world country and most third world ones by orders of magnitude.
Yeah, I'm gonna say that's the media blowing up the issue and focusing on certain troublesome areas. I live in a state that's more likely than most I would think to have racism and I just don't see it in everyday life, or rather, with in everyday life with friends who are not caucasian.
It's curiosity, and it's racism, if that grannie were to assume there were all sorts of things different about me because I was white. Racism isn't just the malicious, antagonistic behavior, you know.
HAHAHA
Well, yes, but isn't that more business as usual in the corporate world than any particular racism?
All the others will feel the crunch time now I feel. At least I hope another company comes and steps to the plate with better standards all around.