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15 hours 34 min ago
Follow the Money
Back in 2001(my emphasis):
Around 20 companies affiliated with English-language school operator GEOS Corp. failed to declare some 280 million yen in income in the five years to March 2000, industry sources said Thursday.
This total includes 130 million yen in concealed revenues, the sources said.
Auditors at the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau who investigated the Tokyo-based company also found that GEOS President Tsuneo Kusunoki and his wife, who serves as vice president, failed to report more than 200 million yen in personal income in the three years through 1999, they said.
Kusunoki is suspected of obtaining part of the affiliates' undeclared income for his personal use, the sources said.
Today's The Age:
Industry insiders said the global financial crisis had hit GEOS hard and its Japanese operations were in trouble.
Even before the appointment of administrators, the Victorian education regulator had been in talks with GEOS to set up a trust fund and other arrangements that would have secured funds in the Melbourne business.
The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority had become concerned about GEOS following a financial audit.
The authority's director, Lynn Glover, said in a statement: ''The VRQA had discovered that the directors [two Australian and one Japanese] have been diverting revenue from GEOS Melbourne to support the operations of other holdings in both Australia and overseas.''
Do you see a connection here? What will GEOS have to say if the administrators Down Under start finding some unusual money transfers? Remember, GEOS was quick to disown its Australian schools and say that everything is fine in Japan.
News coverage in Japan has been sparse so far, sticking to regurgitating the basic facts: eight schools closed, thousands of students affected, Ernst & Young are the administrators. What's not being reported is GEOS Japan siphoning money out of its overseas schools. Jiji.com simply notes that the schools ran into financial difficulties (資金繰り悪化). Things, however, are not that simple.
This is the destruction wrought by the closures:
Bill Egerton, who is contracted by GEOS to pick up foreign students for the Surfers Paradise school in his Koala Blue bus, said: "The receivers walked in and told everyone to leave. They have closed the doors. I'm owed about $4000 from them."
Mr Egerton said there were about 260 students at the school.
He said 15 students were due to arrive this weekend but would have nowhere to go.
"These kids pay $10,000 to $15,000 each for tuition."
AUSTRALIA'S international education industry has suffered another massive blow with the collapse of eight English language colleges, leaving 2300 foreign students around the country in the dark over their future.
The single largest group affected is in Melbourne and has an estimated 530 students unable to complete their courses. Some had just one more week before the end of their course. A total of 390 employees have lost their jobs.
[...]
Marcio Alves, 33, from Brazil, who paid $4000 and was expecting to finish his course in five weeks, said: ''I think I lost money here. In Brazil I worked for one year to save for this course.''
Pascal Fux, 40, a banker from Switzerland, paid $10,000 and said he had come to Australia in the hope of starting a new life. ''It's a country where everything should work fine, like in Switzerland … but this is a bad way to start a new life.''
Students and staff are owed more than $10 million in pre-paid fees and entitlements.
Worst-hit are about 1000 students who had paid GEOS for homestay accommodation and who could now face eviction.
GEOS student Joachim Adam from Germany has already been told by his landlady in Melbourne to immediately pay his weekly rent of $220 dollars or leave, even though he has already paid all his rent to GEOS.
"I must pay by this evening or I must go," he said.
Administrator Justin Walsh of Ernst and Young said remaining funds "are vastly insufficient to continue trading". GEOS was put into administration by its Japanese parent on Friday.
The Australian understands students, landlords and agents could be owed about $10 million, while the entitlements of the nearly 400 staff also run into the millions.
[...]
Mario Galindo, a 39-year-old university tutor from Colombia, paid almost $7000 for a ten-month course to improve his English. He has been left stranded with two months tuition owed.
"I thought this was a serious country . . . but now I think it was a mistake," Mr Galindo said.
Pina Vigo of West Preston in Melbourne was yesterday showing her newly arrived nephew, Filippo Zilio, from Italy, where his GEOS college was, only to find it closed. Mr Zilio, 19 had paid for a month's study.
"It stinks," Ms Vigo said. "How can they do this to the students? How can the government not know?"
This is what could be coming to Japan's shores very soon. Unlike Nova, there are no court cases to follow, no share price to monitor, and virtually no reporting in Japan. GEOS is a privately-owned company and isn't obligated to show its books to the public. If bankruptcy is in the cards, I think the end could happen quickly. There won't be months of drama unfolding on TV as with Nova's collapse. Staff and students could wake up one day to find the schools locked and shuttered.
If you work for GEOS, you have to start asking yourself, "What am I going to do if the shit hits the fan?" You need to start preparing for the worst. If you don't believe that bankruptcy will happen, ask yourself, "How long can I keep working for a company that operates with complete disregard for the well-being of its staff and students and still sleep at night?"
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The stench of GEOS
So Kusunoki reckons that "All of the schools in Australia are locally incorporated companies whose management, operations, and financial situations are completely independent"
Hmmm, yeah right. Why then, according to the VRQA have
"the directors [two Australian and one Japanese] been diverting revenue from GEOS Melbourne to support the operations of other holdings in both Australia and overseas"
Did they just make this decision independently, out of the kindness of their hearts, to syphon off the $10-15,000 per head which students had paid up front for tuition & lodging, to support GEOS Japan and other overseas operations??
The stench from this just increases by the minute.
Accountability
The effect of the Corporations Act is that when company directors (and, my dear, company office holders - a reading of the Act shows that the latter is a wide catch-net) make decisions, they must bear in mind if that decision will move the company to a position of ill liquidity.
This is an area that any administrators will likely explore in any liquidation as they move to capture assetts available to meet creditors demands. And remember that liquidations can drag on for a long time as assetts are chased. And simply resigning from a corporate position will not render the individual entirely safe from being chased for a financial contribution to the liquidation at some later date.
Overall, its a very uncomfortable position to be in after a company collapse.
Financial fall-out begins
Finbar drawn into school collapse
Property: 2-February-10 by Dan Wilkie
Listed property developer Finbar has been drawn into the collapse of a Japanese-owned language college GEOS, which was a big commercial tenant of the group.
GEOS-operated St Mark's English language college in Highgate sits on land owned by Finbar Funds Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Finbar Group, which bought the property in February 2007 for $11.8 million.
The school was placed in voluntary administration on January 29.
According to its annual report, Finbar had been leasing the property to GEOS for $757,000 per year.
When asked questions about the property this morning, Finbar executive director Darren Pateman responded in an ASX announcement stating GEOS had no arrears in respect to rent.
Mr Pateman also said Finbar held a cash security bond in excess of 12 months rent.
"We do not anticipate there will be a material effect on the company's financial position or profit guidance should Geos default on the lease," Mr Patemen said.
The collapse of the school is likely to impact on Finbar's plans for the property, which it intended to develop into residential apartments when the schools lease expired in 2012.
Mr Patemen said Finbar would be exploring redevelopment options sooner than anticipated.
Tx to WA Business News
payback
I do not know much about Australia system, but I expect they do not let crooked business leaders off as easily as Japan does. Lets hope they investigate this well in Australia to the point where the Japanese cannot just ignore it.
More information ...
Here is some more information with a short video:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2808404.htm
I'm guessing that GEOS
I'm guessing that GEOS Australia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GEOS Japan. So while technically it is an "independent" legal entity, I have little doubt that in actual fact the parent exercises complete control over it.
I think Accountability Expert's post is correct above. Normally directors have a fiduciary duty to shareholders, though in this case the only shareholder (probably) is GEOS Japan, presumably the entity to which they were shoveling GEOS Australia's money, so they can't sue the directors for that.
Creditors will have some remedies too though as they are the ones who (in addition to students and staff) are getting screwed royally by all this.
Locked out?
It's more or less impossible that teachers can show up to work to find the place locked and shuttered... most of us have keys. :)
Keys
Heh. You're right about that. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I had a set of keys during my stint, too. But my point is that since Kusunoki answers to no one, he can take his marbles and leave when he wants to. Even if you have the keys, there's nothing of value in the schools anyway ;-)
Shawn
North American Schools to follow?
The Director of the U.S. schools, based in New York City, bailed out of GEOS and joined a competitor in the last few months after more than 15 years with GEOS. The New York school was one of the few profitable schools in North America.
I'm guessing that GEOS
Yup, the companies involved in the liquidation are GEOS Japan entities BUT operating within an Australian Pty structure with all the Comapnies Act constraints and liabilities that involes. Making a decision that leads, or that a reasonable person might consider would lead , to insolvency means we have to think about the creditors in the equation. Without creditors there would be no insolvency, no liquidity problems. In cases like the one we are discussing there are some interesting creditors, apart from the student,s employees, photocopy companies and the like, there are creditors like the Australian Taxation Department and Federal agencies and heavy weight landlords Now those agencies, depending on a heap of factors (including public opinion and clamour), make their own decisions as to how hard to chase directors. For example, in the case of a late 2009 Melbourne College closure there was much (unresolved) pressure to chase the overseas directors. Interesting days for all, eh? It dosen't all go away just because you leave a company or an office or call in the administrators, particularly if bulk money is involved.
keys...
keys won't do you much good if the landlord changes the locks or puts a chain on the door.
The Group of Three are Responsible
By and large, it is whiners, complainers, and communist union members (I call them "The Group of Three), who destroyed Nova and now Geos.
Did you know the Union has a poster of General Che hanging on it's office wall? That speaks volumes.
I blame The Group of Three for preventing Eikaiwa from doing as it has done for decades, which is the provision of a sound, secure, well paid and very easy job, in a far away land and very different culture.
Thousands of young people will now do without their Japanese adventures, which we have all enjoyed, thanks to The Group of Three.
Keys
Blimey, you bring back memories of working in Indo where the landlord chained the doors cos of rent fight and the boss put an even bigger lock and chain on the doors and stood back and grinned. Or the time I was working for an English school in Covent Garden, in London, and the baliffs chained up the front door and the 75 year old boss quietly led us all up a dark, skinny alleyway and into the school through a fogotten for years back door! Or the time here in Sydney when I left the Bankstown College with all its computers and high tech gear at 10.30pm and HORROR I couldn't lock the front door with the new key I'd been given! Oh, what an industry!! Forget the standards and enjoy the insanity of it all!!!!
group of 3...
The Australian union just isn't extreme enough. This would've been over years ago if it weren' t for the union. Who's the creepy boring guy with the monotone voice from the union in Brisbane for example? If they'd only send round a firebrand who can get the blood pumping round my cold dark heart I might have joined them rather than avoid them all these years.
North American GEOS Schools to follow
It is only a matter of time before the North American GEOS schools will follow suit. Mr K has been siphoning the money form these schools for a long time. He will turn to the US schools even more now and I know that there is a lot of outstanding rent, bills etc.... This is nothing new for GEOS. They have been shuffling the money around for many years. The problem this time.....there are too many bills and not enough money. Once a whole group of schools like this goes down - the rest will follow. Agents and students won't trust GEOS anymore...and they shouldn't. GEOS NA has been paying employees late and not paying bills for years.....karma! It all stems from the big guy at the top....who thinks he is God! I am afraid he will find out very soon that he isn't........... unless he is too drunk to figure it out, which could very well be the case.
Unions and trolls
Coburgsavoyman, I wholeheartedly agree with you. The Union has been messing with people's lives for years now, and look where we are in 2010 - Nova gone, Geos on the ropes, the once mighty and fine eikaiwa industry on its knees.
Couple this together with trolls on Internet message boards imitating other posters, flaming and provoking people, bombarding boards with meaningless posts that divert attention away from the real issues, and stopping the facts from emerging, and it paints a grim picture indeed.
Unions and trolls - hang them all!
Unions australia
The Queensland independent education union are a complete joke. They'll do nothing to protect teachers but always have their hand out for money. I've seen them lead teachers into stupid situations under work cover and things and then abandon them when it goes bad. That clown that bunfight refers to (john something or other, I think) is the biggest knob I've ever seen. He shows up in his tweed jacket with leather patches and struts around without achieving a thing. I want my union money back.
union obsessed trolls
Why always these points harping on the union? I think it is probably the same person or couple of people. Were you raped by someone in a union? Get over it! Try to say something on the topic.
Say what you like about unions. Some of them certainly do bad things too. However, to say that a tiny, weak union in Japan someone brought down Nova a Geos and somehow have a major effect on the crappy eikaiwa industry??!!!? What a joke!!!! My child. The changes in that industry and the downfall of so many eikaiwas (they have ALWAYS had a habit of failing) is due to factors a million times more poweful than that silly little union in Japan!!
All your harping is doing is making yourself look ridiculous.
Of course the financial
Of course the financial problems in many of the bigger eikaiwa in Japan are inherent in their business models and exacerbated by generally poor planning and management. These are the real causes of the cash flow problems that will threaten others like they have Nova and GEOS over the the next twelve to twenty four months if market trends continue in Japan.
The fact that things are so shaky though mean that relatively small numbers of teachers or unions can create a major crisis for these companies. Unfortunately the result could as easily be bankruptcy as much improved working conditions.
Unions don't cause the problems but they can do easily more harm than good - depending on your perspective, naturally.
Oh come on, it is time to be honest
Good, I appreciate and respect your responses, however, how many of you can deny, about the same time the Union started to attack Nova, Nova began to get into financial difficulty? How many of you can deny, the world recession occurred not long after? Does the world “dominos” ring a bell with any of you? Would GEOS in Australia be open today, if insurance costs in GEOS Japan did not increase? I am not looking to start fights here, far from it, but dare I say, if Unions did not exist, no-one would have lost their eikaiwa jobs in Japan to begin with. Come on, let’s face facts, there are too many amazing coincidences, for this all to be swept under the carpet. Is it really all GEOS Japan’s management’s fault?
coburgsavoyman
You are either trying to be funny or are a total nutjob!
If you want to apportion
If you want to apportion "blame" I think it rests more with the owners rather than the managers of these companies. Management turnover is quite high amongst Japanese, not only foreign managers (and I'm referring here to middle and senior management at head office, not school managers).
Despite this turnover the root problems remain. This is only my opinion, but I think the owners are still trying to operate in the the market of 20 years ago when rapid expansion was at least partly viable. Keeping few to no cash reserves just doesn't work at a time of stagnant growth given the nature of an eikaiwa's assets. They obviously recognize the market trend but changing their business practices seems to be much more difficult.
It's quite uncanny when you look at the similarities in the history and management styles of these owners. In particular their tendency to feel more comfortable with "yes men" and the habit of chasing away more "visionary" managers.
I do think the days of eikaiwa as we know them are numbered, but unlike many here, I think this is a sad thing in many ways.
ass end up
good riddance to NOVA. good riddance to GEOS. good riddance to any other crap chain schools that have 4 letter names.
the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire ... we don't need no water let the mo'fo burn!!
peace - i'm out
To be honest...
Um, yes. Unions for instructors in the eikaiwa business are an ineffectual joke.
Are you sucking the life out of the room?
Reading these posts always makes me feel either sad or disgusted. All of these people on here who are sitting back and giggling as an industry falls down around their ears have very little insight into what is going on.
Certainly EIkaiwa has been created to make money off of a nations desire to learn English for business, but it is also about the importation of culture and ideas. I am always saddened to see how cynical people get about their jobs and their role in this industry. I do not think it is a huge leap to say that the people who are delighting in this calamity are exactly the kind of Eikaiwa teachers who go to work in their wrinkled shirts and do crap lessons off the cuff. Do you not realize that if we all took a bit of pride in our vocation that the Japanese public wouldn't be so disillusioned with the entire industry.
The market has shrunk and companies like NOVA and GEOS are dwindling away to nothing. I would like to know where you think all of their customers go. DO you think the collapse of NOVA was a boon for anyone. If that were the case then this wouldn't be happening to GEOS now either. The market would have snapped up all the left over students and been all the better for their collapse. That is not what happened though is it. All those students disappeared, why would they not though. If the only thing keeping them studying was convenience or habit why would they keep it up?
I think that if your general outlook on this industry or Japan are as bleak as these threads suggest then you should leave Japan to those of us who still have some passion for the work. Go home be cynical and jaded there, we don't want you sucking the life out of the room.
Oh you are so right!
Of course, it is those horrible, lazy, smelly foreigners who are to blame for this mess. The companies were looking after the best interests of their customers, and trying to promote international understanding. How perceptive you are, you corporate cock sucking little weasel.
Look. You can take the job as
Look. You can take the job as seriously as you like, but the fact of the matter is that the whole set up doesn't work. OK? You know: things like free booking systems are not good for achieving educational objectives as one example, and there are plenty more. Try, try, try. You're not going to make up for the core deficits that exist. What is more, when the more diligent have pointed out the obvious core problems, it has fallen on deaf ears. Only the most cosmetic changes will get through, provided you can argue that they will increase profits. Arguments like long term investment in authentic R and D will secure public faith in your business: forget it. All they cared about was the next foot in the door. Now they are reaping what they sowed. Nova, Geos and the rest had decades, DECADES to to start taking language learning seriously, and they weren't interested. Companies like this should not be in education, because they are not interested in it. They love to hire people who think they can find a way to make it real though, they love that. It's good for PR.
I agree. These companies demoralize
students and teachers alike. They bring down the whole endeavor of language teaching and learning. They make it uneducational. (Yes, that's a made up word.)
No one will believe any bad news coming out of Japan
No one believe any bad news coming out of Japan. The propaganda is too cute, happy and high tech. Japan, love it or leave it. You can't report anything to people overseas because they just simply will not believe you.
No we'll leave that job to Mr
No we'll leave that job to Mr K ocksucker and his his insipid stodges. The Japanese industry has only got itself to blame. the only thing they know how to run is companies into the ground.
I do worry about this
I do worry about this country. My JET
just tried to correct me to the fact that
all of Asia used to be a part of the British coloney
and that's why other Asian countries a better at English.
Giving me two examples, Thailand and the Phillipines.
Get me out of here!!!!!!!
Coloney?
Really? Who hired you?
Coloney?
Coloney Bogey, of course. Da, da and the same to you.
@12:19 I think it is quite
@12:19
I think it is quite enjoyable watching big companies like GEOS and NOVA fall, and get exposed for what they really are. In that way, there's more chance of a "clean up" in the so-called eikaiwa "industry".
As for people not taking their eikaiwa jobs seriously, so what? Eikaiwa companies don't take their "jobs" seriously, the whole thing is a complete, despicable joke. I don't think anyone gives a shit about fine, up-standing, honourable eikaiwa "teachers" like yourself. Eikaiwa is, by and large, an exploitative racket, and this latest round of GEOS skulduggery - GEOS Japan apparently helping itself to $10m+ of GEOS Australia's students' tuition money - only proves it yet again.
@12.19
How can you give crap lessons off the cuff of a wrinkled shirt? Surely, 12.19, you could iron out any such problems. And, anyway, wrinkled shirts are fine. Esquire magazine, a favourite read of Australian GEOS teachers when we used to sit in our staff room with our DOS and our Manager and often a couple of visiting agents,sipping Mocca and nibbling at our chokkie bikkie,s, claims that:
A wrinkle-free shirt is like a football uniform without grass stains: It makes you look third string. Hesitant. Pretty. It makes you look correct, yes, but life isn't correct; it's wrinkled
And you have to admit that GEOS itself is pretty wrinkled. So there you go. Off with the permanent press and on with the wrinkled cotton. Lovely.
Eikaiwa is broken
I think the main reason that the Eikaiwa industry is failing is that the majority of the school owners never saw it as anything other than an easy way to make money. As I see it they figured that lots of Japanese people were interested in studying English but weren't up for the rigours of proper academic courses, and could be persuaded that all they needed to do was show up for a class every week and try to talk to a genki gaijin. This meant that as far as the owners were concerned qualified teachers weren't really necessary, because they could just do what native Japanese English teachers do when they teach in junior and senior high school, i.e. whatever it says to do in the textbook. It has been my experience that at least some of these bigger eikaiwa schools do have some well-qualified ELT professionals who do try to develop good lesson materials and courses, but the western employees who get promoted to supervisory or managerial positions are often just regular clueless instructors from totally different academic backgrounds, so they have no real concept of the academic standards they are supposed to be upholding.
The result is that Japanese people have been paying billions of yen over the years for lessons that are not very well taught in many cases and of little educational value anyway. No one interviewing a prospective Japanese employee is going to be very impressed to learn that they reached Zone G at NOVA, if they even have any idea what that means. A good TOEIC score or Eiken grade would be more useful, but they need hard work and at eikaiwa schools it seems that all the students need to do is hand over the cash, have fun and try to string a couple of sentences together. That might have been fine twenty years ago when everyone in Japan was swimming in cash and could throw it all away on hobbies, but those days are long gone. As it seems that GEOS have continued to charge exorbitantly high lesson fees, it appears that they are totally oblivious to this.
try to string a couple of
try to string a couple of sentences together.
Hold on a minute there. I'm not going to have lessons from someone who makes me try to do that. One sentence lessons, please!
And the Lord be praised!
"The result is that Japanese people have been paying billions of yen over the years"
You're saying that as though it's a bad thing.
I NEED people to be willing to hand over bundles of cash for a piss poor product, because, quite frankly, that's as much as I'm capable of delivering. Sorry
Back in Great Britain, I spent year after unemployed year, with a score of ZERO on the shagometer, and here, I get three thousand bucks a month, no questions asked, and the occasional bonk, too! What more can I ask for?
And by the way - not wishing to freak anyone out or anything, but I'm not a troll, and the above post reflects my true life experiences and potential.
Have a nice pay!
I NEED people to be willing
Hrm. Let's see. How about a conscience? Or a few more bonks? You've obviously got a bit of a problem if they're only occasional. Incidentally, as it's beginning to look as if GEOS might go the same way as NOVA, that could well be another nail in the coffin of the eikaiwa industry, and unless you're joking you might have to try to deliver a bit more value for money - people in Japan aren't as willing to pay for useless shit as they used to be.
Thankyou Mr X too!!! As I
Thankyou Mr X too!!! As I said above (obviously you're illiterate as well as self righteous) I'm NOT joking. There are too many trolls here already.
No, what I deliver for my 300,000 per month, is my sparkling personality, a bit of fluffy chit chat, and the suggestion that I may be available for a bit of rumpy pumpy. And still they come....
Yours in Japan, since 99
Billy
hi billy.
Hope to see you sleeping rough very soon. This feeling of disgust towards you that I have, it must be the same feeling that professional masseurs have towards prostitutes, or doctors have about homeopaths.
Thankyou Mr X too!!! As I
Yes... well, the thing is, any troll you could care to mention would also claim to be completely serious.
But have you ever wondered why you've been here all this time and are only managing to get 300,000 a month?
@chilled out twat
If you work for GEOS, pack those bags then....
No, what I deliver for my
Billy, good sir, you are a man close to my heart! Where else in the world can one get paid decent money just for having the unquantifiable "gaijin factor", do a piss easy - albeit at times boring - job, and get to bang more cute, naiive Japanese chicks up the a$$ than our looks warrant?
Gotta love Japan! Gotta love Eikaiwa! Gotta love this lifestyle!
Peace out brothers.
OK, here's something to chew
OK, here's something to chew on.
If Students are asking for refunds, we'll get to see how solid (or not) GEOS's business practice is, right?
Let's remember that by law any company that provides a service (be it English, flower arranging, whatever) shouldn't be using tuition money until the service is taken.
This came in around 2000(?) and was supposed to stop the convoluted cancellation process, particularly in the Eikaiwa (you guys think it's bad now, students literally got locked in interview rooms until they agreed not to cancel, or renew a new contract). It was supposed to guarantee refunds. And make the refund process hassle-free (ho-ho).
Generally speaking, when I was still at GEOS, it was a lot easier to make a cancelation after this happened. Managers were not supposed to say anything to prevent the cancellation (no quibbles) and just help the student fill out the paperwork - refund a few weeks later.
So if students are asking for refunds, how easily are they getting them? (bearing in mind that this is Japan, and Banking is more backward than ... ok, possibly it's the most backward thing in Japan.) Don't know how things are now.
Also, for GEOS teachers, think about how this affects all the money that you are 'seeing' going into the schools - If the contract (for arguments sake) is worth say 200,000, the school sees 1 months worth of that and a signing on fee (about 20%). (you do the math, I can't be bothered). Especially if it's a renewal, you'll only get the signing fee. Do GEOS still teach you this in training (I did it in the 3rd in-Japan training)?
The upside to this is that if GEOS have done things legally, any school with over about 70 students should be doing fine for expenses every month, just from existing tuition.
If they haven't then, it'll be NOVA all over again.
OK, here's something else to chew on
Look at the bank account names a number of GEOS Australia companies used to receive student payments. For example:
ADELAIDE
GEOS Adelaide College of English Trust Account
BRISBANE
QCE Student Trust
So what messages were Mums and Dads and students and agents getting (and what reasonable expectations did they have about the security of their monies) as they wrote their cheques and pressed their plastic???
Compare this to the rigid trust account system GEOS NZ oprates through Walker Wayland (Chartered Accts) and the ASB Bank.
More questions for the Ozzie Govt to look at, eh? Or is it all too hard, and anyway, it will all go away soon like Meridian and Lee and Sterling and the Melbourne Institute and and all the other institutions on the proud Australian honour roll of educational collapses?
Fee protection in UK US and Canada? Does it exist?
What fee protection do students at GEOS in these countries have? In the event of a collapse will the larder have been raided as it was in Australia. And if so, it may be worse because Australia operates the TAS scheme with a government back-up. Would it cause a reputational problem for the UK or Canada if there was a closure with an empty larder? Why are there seeminly no GEOS staff speaking out? Too afraid for their jobs?
GEOS NY director bails out.
Who was he and when did he bail and did he give any reasons? Strange silence on this blog from North America..
Fee Protection in the UK
Yes, it does exist. See http://www.englishuk.com/en/students/english-in-the-uk/student-emergency....
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