This is the 100th update on Japan Is Doomed. Here’s to 100 more!
Last year, there were NOVA adverts absolutely everywhere. Alongside Berlitz, they were pretty much the largest private English school in the country. I knew quite a few people from America, Australia and other various countries who were living and working and were perfectly happy in Japan. At it’s peak, Nova ran 900 language schools – I knew an awful lot of Japanese people who took the classes there. Whilst NOVA wasn’t held in the highest regard, it was a decent school. Then things started going downhill. In June, NOVA’s long-term contract method was called into criticism and a six month ban was levied against the company. This dealt a blow to the company it could never really recover from. In August this year the company was rumored to be, and later proven to be, paying it’s staff late and missing payments to investors and banks. Things started to slide and the inevitable happened, the business folded.
Why am I telling you this? Well to be honest I don’t really care about Nova. What I do care about is are the hundreds of foreign teachers who have absolutely no income, no way to get home and no support. Stories of teachers being fed by their students are reaching the press, and of course the government has been as awesome as it always is – by doing absolutely nothing.
“I have a couple of thousand yen (£10/$20) left in the bank. I am expecting an eviction notice any day,” Kristen Moon, a teacher from the United States, told a news conference in Tokyo, at which she appeared dressed as a pink rabbit character that Nova used in advertising.
Australian Natasha Steele was on the verge of tears as she said her students were feeding her.
Union officials said there were plans to barter language lessons for food for the teachers.
It’s happening all over the country. I particularly love the last line of the clipping; rather than sort them out with new employment or aid them in financially supporting themselves, the Union has instead decided the best way to deal with the problem is to have them teach for bread.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. The Nova Teacher’s Union is starting to support teachers who have no money after Nova failed to pay them. Frankly I’m let down that it’s a relatively small union who the teachers have to rely on rather than the country, but it’s better than nothing. Just. The quicker Japan realises that foreign teachers are a valuable benefit rather than liabilities the better.
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