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burendasan4I was having a conversation with my supervisor today when she casually mentioned that the daughter of one of our fellow catalogers is currently in Japan, and was teaching English at an English "conversation school" (eikaiwa) that recently went under and got bought out. I asked her for the name of the school and she told me it was Nova.
I couldn't believe it. Well, in some ways it's not surprising considering that Nova is considered the "sweatshop" of the English conversation schools, known for shady marketing practices and outrageous rules for employees such as not allowing English teachers to associate with their students outside of class (I'm imagining that it's a difficult rule to enforce, but still...). Still, it was one of the biggest English-teaching franchises in Japan. Everywhere you went, one was bombarded with Nova ads featuring the hideous pink bunny.
So I looked up news about Nova and was stunned. This article explains the whole situation pretty well. Apparently, after being banned by the government from making new lesson contracts with students due to their illegality, Nova started losing a lot of money, especially after students demanded their money back. Then, in September, employees stopped getting paid. They were promised to eventually get paid but October, the whole company shut down. The CEO ran off and hasn't been heard from since. Can you imagine living in a foreign country like Japan and all of the sudden you have no money? What's worse, a lot of teachers lived in housing paid for by Nova and when Nova stopped paying the rent...Well, it seems that a LOT of people were screwed. Some appealed to their home country's embassy for help and airlines were offering tickets back to their home countries at discounted prices. Apparently, another company has bought out some of the Nova schools, but only a small fraction of the total schools so far (Nova schools were everywhere).
Reading about this incident really...how do you say it?...gave me pause. Going off to live in Japan (and other Asian countries) to teach English used to be really lucrative, a guaranteed money-maker. According to my Japanese professor, the only qualification you would need was to speak English and you could make a pretty good living. In recent years, it seems to have become more difficult to make a living that way. And of course, to get a really good job teaching English, you need to have at least a college degree and having experience teaching is highly preferred. I was lucky and was able to live in Japan for a few months while managing to save up some money. But even in my last few months there, the number of lessons at our school (thankfully I never worked at Nova) were declining and I wouldn't have been able to keep working there for much longer. Nova's collapse shows that the current model for the English-teaching business is no longer working. The days of earning easy money in Japan working as an English teacher are over...
It also reminded me of how ruthless Japan can be to foreigners and how ruthless it can be for foreigners living in Japan. It made me realize how good I have it right now and that perhaps I made the best choice by deciding to return to the US. Still...there is something about Japan that draws people there all the time. Japan truly tests those who go to live there but most come back with a rewarding experience or end up staying there forever. It is like facing a beautiful and formidable foe...
I couldn't believe it. Well, in some ways it's not surprising considering that Nova is considered the "sweatshop" of the English conversation schools, known for shady marketing practices and outrageous rules for employees such as not allowing English teachers to associate with their students outside of class (I'm imagining that it's a difficult rule to enforce, but still...). Still, it was one of the biggest English-teaching franchises in Japan. Everywhere you went, one was bombarded with Nova ads featuring the hideous pink bunny.
So I looked up news about Nova and was stunned. This article explains the whole situation pretty well. Apparently, after being banned by the government from making new lesson contracts with students due to their illegality, Nova started losing a lot of money, especially after students demanded their money back. Then, in September, employees stopped getting paid. They were promised to eventually get paid but October, the whole company shut down. The CEO ran off and hasn't been heard from since. Can you imagine living in a foreign country like Japan and all of the sudden you have no money? What's worse, a lot of teachers lived in housing paid for by Nova and when Nova stopped paying the rent...Well, it seems that a LOT of people were screwed. Some appealed to their home country's embassy for help and airlines were offering tickets back to their home countries at discounted prices. Apparently, another company has bought out some of the Nova schools, but only a small fraction of the total schools so far (Nova schools were everywhere).
Reading about this incident really...how do you say it?...gave me pause. Going off to live in Japan (and other Asian countries) to teach English used to be really lucrative, a guaranteed money-maker. According to my Japanese professor, the only qualification you would need was to speak English and you could make a pretty good living. In recent years, it seems to have become more difficult to make a living that way. And of course, to get a really good job teaching English, you need to have at least a college degree and having experience teaching is highly preferred. I was lucky and was able to live in Japan for a few months while managing to save up some money. But even in my last few months there, the number of lessons at our school (thankfully I never worked at Nova) were declining and I wouldn't have been able to keep working there for much longer. Nova's collapse shows that the current model for the English-teaching business is no longer working. The days of earning easy money in Japan working as an English teacher are over...
It also reminded me of how ruthless Japan can be to foreigners and how ruthless it can be for foreigners living in Japan. It made me realize how good I have it right now and that perhaps I made the best choice by deciding to return to the US. Still...there is something about Japan that draws people there all the time. Japan truly tests those who go to live there but most come back with a rewarding experience or end up staying there forever. It is like facing a beautiful and formidable foe...
