geos

This is for you GEOS fanatics that can't get enough of the defunct school:

A JAPANESE-owned English language school has been ordered to pay one of its managers compensation of €30,000 and to increase her salary in line with that of a male counterpart.

The school, trading as GEOS Ireland, was found to have discriminated against Nerea Medrano on a number of grounds, including gender and family status.

This was mentioned in comments in a previous thread on GEOS, but the Honolulu school is no longer accepting students. The Honolulu page on GEOS.net looks like this:

The kanji for 2010 was "sho"（暑）meaning hot. Looking back on the year, as far as this blog is concerned, the word of the year is probably "GEOS" owing to the closure of its schools in Australia and then its bankruptcy in Japan. On the other hand, if you worked for Nova when it collapsed in 2007, the fact that the trustees have started paying unpaid wages probably came as a pleasant surprise. For what it's worth, here's a recap of the issues covered on Let's Japan.

Here come the school closures:

Nagoya-based investment fund Inayoshi Capital Partners said Thursday that about 50 of its 167 Geos foreign-language school branches will be renamed Nova X Geos after November.

ICP also said it will close down about 20 Geos branches whose business areas are overlapping with those of Nova.

The company said students of those schools will be relocated to the nearby Nova schools or receive lessons via Nova's unique video-phone system.

After giving up GEOS and Nova and his job, Masaki Inayoshi is back in the saddle.

According to the Asahi shimbun, GEOS, Nova, and its juku cram schools were sold (again!) as of October 1 by G.communication to Inayoshi Capital Holdings, an investment firm set up by former G.communication chairman Masaki Inayoshi, who gave up his position in August.

GEOS North America Announced on September 10 that it has signed a letter of intent [PDF] for the acquisition of all 12 GEOS schools in North America by Florida-based Open Hearts International College.*

Like many readers here, zakzak wonders about the odd combination of restaurant companies and English conversation schools.

Nova and GEOS are under new management. The new boss is Kobe-based food and beverage importer and distributor Hanshin Shuhan. According to the Yomiuri shimbun, Foodys, the current parent company of Nova and GEOS, is to hand over its 50.98% share in the eikaiwa schools to Hanshin Shuhan by the end of August.

According to the Mainichi shuimbun, in Nagano. G.communication operates four GEOS schools and two children's schools in the prefecture. The Matsumoto school will close on the 20th and the Saku school on the 31st. A spokesperson called the closures the result of an "overall management decision."

Comedy gold!

Page launched an unfair dismissal claim against GEOS, which comes under the umbrella of the GEOS Corporation founded by Japanese businessman Tsuneo Kusunoki.

But the company responded by claiming that Page "accepted understanding of the 'Japanese way' of doing business". They went on to say he was used to Kusunoki "ranting", "berating" and "humiliating" people "so this was nothing new".