Posts Tagged ‘net’

Osaka City Government Cutting Budget: Foreign English Teachers Losing Their Jobs?

Some of the most experienced foreign English teachers at Osaka public schools may soon lose their jobs:

Nearly three dozen native English teachers called Monday on Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto not to cancel an education program that places native speakers of English in the prefecture’s schools and expressed concern that the teachers have only been offered four-month contracts.

The Osaka Fu Special English Teachers Union (OFSET), which represents the 34 native English speakers working at prefectural-run high schools and special education schools, hand-delivered a letter to representatives in the governor’s office in the afternoon and requested a meeting as soon as possible.

“The Osaka Prefectural NET (Native English Teachers) Program is currently under threat of cancellation due to budget concerns. NETs, working closely with Japanese teachers of English, have spent years developing sophisticated English programs at schools throughout Osaka Prefecture. Without NET teachers, these programs would become unsustainable and simply vanish,” the letter says.

After taking office in February, Hashimoto announced that the prefecture would enact a four-month emergency budget to run from April to July.

By then, two special project teams, appointed by the governor to review all prefectural spending, are expected to have their final recommendations on what should be cut. Osaka Prefecture has nearly ¥5 trillion in outstanding debts and is nearly bankrupt.

Many NET teachers are very unhappy about their four-month contracts, fearing that it may be a sign that their jobs will cease to exist under the new city budget:

At a press conference attended by about 15 union members, Steven Thompson, general secretary of the union said: “A four-month contract [for teaching work that requires long-term planning] is just crazy. It’s a terrible problem.”

For more details on the situation, check out the OFSET Union’s homepage.

Crackdown On File-Sharing In Japan

It is being reported that Japanese internet service providers are cutting off the net connections of users found to be engaging in illegal file-sharing:

The nation’s four Internet provider organizations have agreed to forcibly cut the Internet connection of users found to repeatedly use Winny and other file-sharing programs to illegally copy gaming software and music, it was learned Friday.

The move aims to deal with the rise in illegal copying of music, gaming software and images that has resulted in huge infringements on the rights of copyright holders.

Resorting to cutting off the Internet connection of copyright violators has been considered before but never resorted to over fears the practice might involve violations of privacy rights and the freedom of use of telecommunications.

The Internet provider organizations have, however, judged it possible to disconnect specific users from the Internet or cancel provider contracts with them if they are identified as particularly flagrant transgressors in cooperation with copyright-related organizations, according to sources.

[hat tip to reader James]

Half of Japanese Scared of Using Internet

Or so an official government survey says:

Some 45.4 percent of respondents to the poll said going online makes them feel uneasy, as opposed to the 36.3 percent who said they were not worried and 18.3 percent who were undecided about how to answer the question.

Cabinet Office officials said that 55 percent of those in their 40s felt unsure about the Internet, making it the demographic most uneasy, but more than 50 percent of those in their 30s and 50s also felt ill at ease about cyberspace.