gaba

The Japan Times has a mini-retrospective on Nova four years after its collapse, with yours truly given a chance to flog Nova's corpse.

For added measure, there's also a piece on the horrors of working for Gaba.

According to William, his troubles began back home in the States when he was interviewed for a teaching position at Gaba by webcam.

As reported in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and ELT News, Nichii Gakkan, a medical and educational services company, will purchase Gaba's stock and make it a wholly-owned subsidiary:

Time to blow the cobwebs off this blog and talk about James McCrostie's article in the Japan Times two weeks ago on the General Union's scrap with Gaba.

The General Union says it has established a Gaba Branch and is accusing Gaba of lying when it stated in a financial report that there was no union and that labor relations were good. By all accounts in the article, this should be a slam dunk for the union, until you read this part:

With Rakuten and Fast Retailing making English the first language in their offices, the Daily Yomiuri Online says that it has given English conversation schools a much needed boost:

The Sankei Shimbun has a puff piece on Gaba. The company's president, Chutatsu Aono, gets some free space to espouse the greatness of his school.

As far as I know, with the demise of Nova, Gaba is the only publicly traded English conversation school in Japan, and finding information on how schools are doing is close to impossible.