G. COMMUNICATION Group, an operator of cram schools, language schools and restaurant chains in Japan, which will take over business operations of the failed English language school chain NOVA, recently announced it had issued unofficial job offers to 1,760 foreign teachers and Japanese staff formerly employed by NOVA, Japan Today has reported.
The acquisition of NOVA operations would be conducted by G. Communication’s subsidiary, G. Education, which runs a chain of 42 English conversation schools under the “EC Inc” brand. G. Education carried out job interviews together with briefings at 24 locations across Japan on November 9 and 10. About 3,500 of NOVA’s former staff attended the briefings. Job offers were made to 1,548 foreign teachers and 212 Japanese administrative employees who wanted to continue working.
G. Education also plans to issue job offers to a further 694 people from NOVA who have registered their desire to be reemployed, meaning about half of the roughly 4,900 workers employed by NOVA when the firm filed for court protection stand to gain reemployment. Furthermore, as G. communication have received inquiries from some foreign teachers and Japanese staff who did not attend the briefings, the number of people to be reemployed with the firm and its affiliates is likely to increase.
G. Communication is looking to reopen 30 schools by the end of this month and expects to reopen more than 100 NOVA branches before the end of this year. The NOVA Kurokawa school in Nagoya’s Kita Ward would be the first NOVA school to be reopened by G. Communication, which will re-brand its EC school in front of Nagoya Station as NOVA.
Besides G. Communication, EF Education First Ltd, a Sweden-based English language institute also has invited former NOVA teachers to teach English in China where demand for English learning is expected to shoot up ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
EF Education First Ltd, which has been chosen as an official language partner of the Olympics, has been seeking about 1,000 English teachers who can teach English in such major Chinese cities as Beijing and Shanghai, Molly Fitzpatrick from the institute said at a press conference in Tokyo. She said EF Education First hoped that NOVA teachers with extensive English teaching experience would seek a new opportunity in China.
In a website message to former NOVA teachers, EF Education First has offered to shoulder costs for traveling to China and to help them find housing.
