nova

ABC Radio National devoted 8 minutes to the situation with Nova.

After filing a demand with the Labour Standard Inspection Office in Osaka at the end of September, the General Union and the Nova union submitted a written demand to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for them to take action regarding the delayed payment of teachers' and staff salaries and student refunds. Good. They are holding Nova's feet to the fire and ratcheting things up.

Oh joy! Nova president "Nozom" Sahashi has decided to tell everyone to hang tight just a little longer yet again. Maybe if he actually showed his face in public and explained things, people would start taking him seriously instead of trying to decipher the meaning of his brief faxes. Here's the new fax with a translation courtesy of .

The big news that was supposed to be announced on October 5th turned out to be a non-event. Instead, Nova submitted its business improvement plan which was rejected by JASDAQ for being light on details. JASDAQ gave Nova until October 19 to resubmit its report.

How bad is the report [PDF in Japanese]? Between now and the end of the fiscal year next March, Nova plans to do the following (p.6 of the report):

The Weekly Playboy gets into the act by reporting on Sahashi's dishonesty and teachers' rent woes. From the WaiWai column in the Mainichi Daily News:

Many of the roughly 5,000 NOVA teachers are furious at the way they've been treated.

So much for the supply of teachers from Australia. AACE, the Australia Asia Centre for Education Exchange, which does recruiting for Nova (and, if I recall correctly, also charges hefty processing fees), has finally had enough of Nova. The following announcement is on their website:

If Nova ever digs itself out of the hole it's in, it will be because of idiot consumers like Hikaru Maeda:

Shukan Gendai has taken a big swipe at Nova president Nozomu Sahashi for going into hiding and leaving everyone in the dark as to what's going on. Here's a quick-and-dirty translation of the article:

The character of Nova president Nozomu Sahashi

Nova at the end of its rope

It seems that Nova is starting another round of paycheck woes. Titled instructors were finally paid on Friday but sadly, the Japanese staff, yet again, will have to wait for their pay. The only reason anybody got paid is due to Sahashi putting up 9 million of shares as collateral for a loan. So nothing has changed and everyone is back to worrying about where their next paycheck will come from while Sahashi continues to struggle to keep Nova alive.

The Japanese media has clued into the fact that Nova teachers have not been paid yet. The Mainichi is typical of what is being reported:

Ailing NOVA under pressure to pay teachers' delayed wages

A labor union will ask a governmental labor inspection office to demand troubled English school NOVA pay its teachers their delayed wages.