Posts Tagged ‘nova’

Nova Expanding Into University Education?

News from LetsJapan.org:

Strange but true, g.education announced plans to open a Nova school on the campus of Aichi Gakuin University in April.

According to the Mainichi Shimbun, the opening of a private business on a university campus is almost unheard of. The article notes that the president of g.communication, Masaki Inayoshi, is a graduate of Aichi Gakuin and apparently this connection was used to help set up a Nova school with the university in order to boost the English ability on campus. The new Nova school will use the current 9-level curriculum and offer lessons at a discount to university staff and students.

Yuri Morishita Lost 2 Million Yen in Nova Collapse

An article in Mainichi’s Japanese edition today mentions that gravure Idol Yuri Morishita [pictured above] admitted that she lost a huge sum of money when English conversation school chain Nova went bankrupt. She told reporters that she had bought 2 million yen [$17,800 US dollars] lesson package, but only had to the time to take 3 lessons before Nova collapsed. Much like thousands of other Nova students, she will get no refund for pre-paid lessons. Morishita said losing all that money has been the biggest shock of her life.

Nova the Movie

Youtube filmmaking group Gaijin Navi has created this short film about an English teacher experiencing the fall of Nova (video via Yin Yang Report):

Will NOVA Rise as G Education?

The demise of NOVA has been well reported by every media source from blogs such as Japan Probe to newspapers like the Asahi Shimbun. Now NOVA is coming back: G Education, a subsidiary of Nagoya based G Communication, is opening branches throughout Japan. On Monday, November 26th, 2007 G Education will reopen the Akita City Eki Mae branch school in Akita City, Akita Prefecture.

Akita City Eki Mae is just one of three planned openings that will take place this week. The others are the Morioka Odori branch school in Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture, and the Hirosaki branch school in Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture. I know specifically that at least three teachers will be on hand to teach classes at the Akita City school. What about students? Well, I have heard from one student that she thought the deal offered by G Education was a good one, and that she would be going back.

Now some will say, one student does not a successful branch school make. I agree, but Akita City had two NOVA branches that were doing fairly okay before the breakdown. Each of those schools had somewhere around 600 total students (300 actively going at any given time) and adding these together and would make a pool of 1200 students to work with. All the branch really needs is 300 to 400 active students to stay alive and profitable. This dual branch system was in place in Morioka City, but not in Hirosaki, which was far and above the strongest branch schools in the three prefectures listed, so I speculate it will do well with its original student population. Of course they all need teachers to teach classes and sales staff to operate the logistics. The teachers will probably come back as they are being offered the equivalent of their old salaries. The sales staff I do not know about, but I have heard that some were hesitant to restart with G Education because they realized, after speaking with labor standards bureau officials, that the salaries they were receiving were ridiculously low in comparison to the amount of work they were doing, and the sales industry standard. This could be a problem for G Education.

In this author’s opinion, it is shocking that G Education is doing this. I did not figure branches north of Sendai would be opening any time earlier than maybe January. My feeling was that G Education was keeping people on the payroll to build some clout with teachers, keeping them in the country (legally) for possible transfer to a new location at a later date. Also, I figured it would take G Education some time to work out various apartment deals left over by NOVA’s negligence. It would also require a host of other logistical nightmares like reassuring paper vendors, utility companies, etc., so this comes as a surprise to me.

[In recognition of full disclosure I will say that I was a NOVA teacher. I was an Assistant Trainer in Akita City (the AEON Shopping Center Branch School in Goshono New Town). However, I am not going back to NOVA, even though I was offered my old job at the salary I was earning pre-collapse. For the time being I do not have a job, but I do wish them well. ]