Eight GEOS Australia Schools in 'Voluntary Administration'

Will the directors be in trouble for diverting the money to Japan even though the crazy CEO required them to?

After working with GEOS Australia, I just want to say what an amazing team of staff and teachers we had. It is absolutely no fault of the Australian schools that this situation has come to pass. The schools were audited regularly and found to be financially stable so it should amaze people that all of a sudden they aren't. It is without a doubt that the Japanese office managed to run the successful schools in Australia into the ground purely through greed. The targets for the schools were unrealistic and criminal. How could bouyant schools struggle to pay wages? Because the CEO thought he had his own private bank in the Australian schools. The Australian schools were not a franchise.....this should worry GEOS Japan staff. So what of GEOS' esteemed leader- well it is my opinion that Mr. K should be the one on trial. A little man who is obessessed with thinking he is a demi-god. Shaving or falling asleep during meetings with senior managers, harrassing and abusing staff members, name calling and appointing bullying Japanese senior staff, drove me to leave and be put on the 'never to be communicated with again' list. At least I shall never again have to listen to lectures on how I should wear my hair, how I must wear makeup and the ever popular 'Goal Come First' speech.

I am very sorry for the Australian staff and students... At least you no longer have to put up with his crap.

Tracking the doings of GEOS early leavers in their new ventures.

Q English in Perth

Gary Maserow has left Geos in Perth to set up his own school, called Q English, in the same city.

The school is currently going through the accreditation process and will open later in the year. Maserow said, “It is out intention to have a boutique college ‘BIG’ on services and personal attention. We want every student to leave us having satisfied our slogan ‘the experience’

Thank you: hothousemedia

You could have warned the other staff but no you chose to save your ass only. well done!!!!!!

LOL....good that there is record in email and video form of his visits and managment meetings here in Australia. Tool!

Eight English schools won't reopen: E&Y DAVID MCINTYRE
February 1, 2010 - 6:49PM
AAP

The voluntary administrators of eight English language schools say that the schools will not reopen because of the financial situation.

Justin Walsh and Adam Nikitins of Ernst & Young say they are working with the federal department of education and state government departments to find arrangements for the 2300 international students.

The administrators were continuing to investigate the nine companies operating under the GEOS name and hope to provide a further update on Wednesday, Ernst & Young said in a statement on Monday.

"We've very quickly worked through the options to keep the schools open, but were unable to do so," Mr Walsh said.

"That included speaking with the Japanese parent."

GEOS, which had schools in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Cairns, Gold Coast, Perth and Brisbane, is the local subsidiary of the Tokyo-based language teaching company of the same name.

"Funds weren't forthcoming" from GEOS, Mr Walsh said.

GEOS's media relations manager was not immediately available for comment.

The students, from 20 different countries including Brazil, Colombia, South Korea and Turkey, and 390 employees were being informed at meetings on Monday afternoon.

"We're working with federal government to minimise the impact on the students," Mr Walsh said.

Mr. Kusunoki is a total asshole. When I worked for GEOS up until late fall in Japan as a teacher at one of its countryside schools....we were routinely sent recorded videos over GEOS secure conferencing program....there were 2 versions..the japanese version and the english version. We were required to watch these videos within 48 hours of release. These videos were nothing but a loose tirade against teachers calling GEOS teachers lazy, stupid, unmotivated, and threatening to fire any teacher for not cooperating with the school manager or for not selling enough outdated study books or failure to meet outrageous sales targets. He made these vidoes clearly to take out his frustrations and anger on the teachers and j-staff for his failed 1987 business model. These videos were anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in length and he constantly repeated himself over and over. It was mind numbing and ridiculous to watch these videos....he would be sitting at his desk and waving his arms in the air and screaming into the camera. The guy was a madman.

These videos tore down teacher morale big time. These videos had at times clear racist overtones/undertones and you couldnt help but get a feeling he looked down on foreigners in general with complete disgust.

Mr. Kusunoki, you can go straight to HELL!! (using middle finger)

What surprises me most is his awful english! Geezus, for someone who ran a eikaiwa empire for more than 35 years...his english really sucks!!
Did GEOS Australia teachers see these vidoes??!?!?!?

Indeed, thoughts are with all GEOS Australia students and staff. Having read the latest from the Ernst and Young administrator above, the prospect of schools re-opening looks all but gone.
Reading the CEO's comments, essentially washing his hands of GEOS Australia, must be sickening. To bleed the region dry over a period of years to support an outdated business model in Japan and then to claim you knew nothing of the financial problem is business practice at its worst.
As was mentioned, he drove out his best people from ID because his daughter didn't like them. This department and the GEOS International Offices had some great staff and agents - just a nutcase making awful decisions.
Agents will now find it impossible to promote the GEOS brand with any confidence and Europe, Asia and North America will surely see the numbers freefall.
GEOS Japan customer services have been fielding hundreds of calls from students worried that their school in Japan will be closing. Of course they are told not to worry - its business as usual. Come in, take your lesson, renew for another 12 month overpriced product, buy crappy outdated self study material with zero practicality, oh and while you're at it, why don't you sign up to one of our wonderful language immersion programs overseas to improve your English?! er.... just not the Australian ones.....
I do hope the company can ride this out as I know some great people working there but the loss of such a major overseas operation, the loss of the funds that brought to Japan and the resulting loss of student confidence in the brand doesn't point to a rosy future.

(google transleted)
Dear Mr. Tsuneo Kusunoki. Saying that does not know the financial situation of companies using the name of the Geos i think is that there is a large administrative problem in your company. Franchising or licensing of trade make it clear, normally, they must follow rigid financial standards for presentation to customers, in addition of course to provide the product correctly.
Urges for considering that the students are alone and without local support, most of the time, since it was proclaimed to be supplied by the school. Please provide the physical and logistical support that was sold in the leaflets that advertise courses abroad.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/collapsed-college-owes-stude...

From 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.''

And from the Australian:

Administrators discovered the Japanese owners had left it with no money to keep going.

So now the question is:

Where did that money go? Why was it diverted?

Corporations Act, Sections 184 read with 187.

I taught at GEOS' college in Perth, St Mark's, until 1.30pm last Friday. Later that afternoon I got a call from 'the administrators' saying the college was closed. A meeting yesterday at 5pm confirmed the closure, when staff and students were told the news, face to face, by the administrators. I heard that overly high commissions, hevy discounting of courses, and the 'opulent lifestyle of the owners (of GEOS)' were tha main factors for its demise. Also, the repatriation to Japan of monies made by Australian colleges had sucked them dry.
Six months ago St Mark's was acrtually looking for extra classrooms, so it must have been profitable and successful. GEOS headquarters in Japan have killed the goose that was laying them golden eggs.
I will lose only about AUD$600 in salary (for three days of teaching last week) but other staff - and students have lost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
Is there not a case for (a) more transparency (e.g. open accounting, on a regular basis) and (b) each college to be considered a cost centre in its own right?
BUT, I agree with earlier sentiments - GEOS is d-e-a-d, and the wise staff and students should bail out NOW, before the GEOS aircraft crashes and burns.
(written early on Tuesday 2nd Feb, Perth, Western Australia).

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a report sooner or later that Kusunoki stuck the money from GEOS Australia into his offshore bank accounts, and has disappeared, leaving the smouldering wreckage of GEOS behind for the crows to peck at.

This is the usual behaviour of your typically selfish eikaiwa scumbag operators.

I hope he chokes on Swiss roll.

@10.42 Homestay
Do you pay tax on the money you receive from the students through the schools, I doubt it, most homestay families do it as a way to pay the Mortgage.

Yes some do it for the experience and are involved in the students learning but alot are just in it for the easy tax free income that it provides.

Why should you be a creditor if you havent paid Tax Just another shark in the Eglish Language world with their hand out wanting to be fed.

I am a NZ school owner and operator. One doubtful claim from many Australian managers is that GEOS was highly profitable. Probably some profit with the very high student numbers, but....We as competitors know that GEOS was selling at around 30% below market rates, and was paying 40% commission compared to something like 25% normally. It sort of works if you have very large numbers. However the 'profit' which managers talk about was very likely to just have been pre-paid fees. Which are now missing. With 2300 students you would expect something like $7 to $10 million at a rough guess in the bank. It wasn't there. There may have been some profit, but cash is NOT profit. (Managers typically do not full appreciate this subtlety of accounting)
The key factor in whether or not Japanese consumers lose confidence is whether or not the Japanese media pick up on the following points:
1. THe money syphoned off Australia included ($5 million to $10 million at least) of student fees in advance. There is nothing left. This was (mostly) not profits, but actually stealing money off students, including Japanese nationals.
2. The fraudulent claim from the CEO (Has this been verified yet?) that AUstralia is just some kind of franchise operation is untrue and affects the trust that Japanese consumers place in GEOS
3. Major Korean agent chains have already directed staff to stop sending students to GEOS. Other nationalities will follow
4. All international GEOS schools will face a 'run' on funds. It is the usual game of the quickest get paid. Countries with 7 day refund rules and the like will create a major problem for GEOS international.
5. If they delay payment, expect angry scenes all round the world as students queue up for money.
6 The agents and students who have demanded ever cheaper courses carry much of the blame for this mess.

In short, Japanese consumers should be afraid - very afraid.

If you are hostile force wishing to get even with GEOS - you need to get these points to Japanese media reporters as fast as possible

I personally have no time for GEOS - they have dragged down the industry with price and a 'McDonald's' approach for years now. Their business model is unsustainable and their demise is good news. Who knows, perhaps if the industry recovers we can actually pay more to our staff! They deserve it. GEOS's exit internationally is good news for everyone except those caught up in it

I think it unlikely that @10.42 Homestay has ever offered free accommodation and meals to strangers from another culture. Is he/she suggesting that this is what homestay providers should do, year in and year out?
I have never heard of anyone becoming wealthy providing homestay accommodation to overseas students. If they receive lenient treatment from tax authorities it is probably because the resources required for providers and authorities to establish and maintain records of expenses involved are out of all proportion to the small amount of tax which could be collected.
Homestay hosts provide accommodation (and often much more) which is well below the price available through commercial providers. They are frequently on tight budgets and deserve sympathy just as much as students and teachers who have have been let down by GEOS International.
They don't deserve to be insulted by some ignorant pipsqueak.

some interesting reading...

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2807781.htm

I am looking for a pdf copy of the official letter recently sent out to everyone in Japan from the GEOS Corporation CEO - Tsuneo Kusunoki. If anyone has received a copy of this letter can you please email it to me? -

The letter goes something like this....

Dear Sir/Madam

Sincerely, I apologize for any concerns about the assessment the financial situation of the schools in Australia.

Now we are still investigating the details however it was the unexpected for us and these schools in Australia are just local Pty Ltd and they are financially independent of our GEOS Japan also we are not familiar with their management and financial situation at all.

We surely allowed them to use GEOS brand and this might be the cause of the concern for the existing
student and potential students in Japan however our GEOS Corp in Japan and EIKAIWA in Japan will be
unaffected by this happened so please do not too worried about GEOS in Japan and please take lessons
as usual.

Now we are trying to keep in contact with the students who have lessons and in homestay in Australia
with our arrangement.

Once we apologize for any inconvenience and the concerns again.

GEOS Corporation

Tsuneo Kusunoki

They dont have principals, have you heard the term Dos? It isnt a computer language and do you know what it means, in the Know?

Which branch? Manly?

Your English is not like that of a person who would work in an English school, tired or not. Even with simple sentences you make a lot of mistakes. How did you get the job? Maybe thats why they went bust.

Do you know where Manly is in Australia? Please respond in the know, I want to know.

oops! now I am writing like you.

Let me assure you that having high competency in written and spoken English was never a requirement to be a GEOS manager. As I think about it, I realise that I'm not really sure of what any of the needed skills were. Ah, yes, of course, obedience.

I agree with you there, however a lot of the staff I worked with in Sydney were smart and very talented for the job. I am disappointed that it is all gone, as those people put in a lot of work and the industry is just a troublesome joke now. People just dont want to be in it anymore, crappy wages living fortnight to fortnight, no holidays etc.

Those of us at Sydney know exactly what 00:36 is talking about. Naughty!!!!

Yes very true, hehe.

Beem in the industry long time. Worked for many language schools in a number of countries including GEOS.

Sorry to tell you Wed but:

1. Its an amoeba industry, no different to hospitality, it has to swell and contract depending on demand, that means its going to be a casualised industry

2. Ts are not seen by other workers as undepaid. $40ish an hour is seen as utopian. Sure, some teachers put extra time in but as you gain experience you can wing it, bend things and minimise any extra time you have to put in. Not many "normal" jobs where you can lift you hat, say bye and get on your bike at 3pm every afternoon!

3. Management styles. Mate, in my experience in the industry I haven't met one who wasn't mad!! In fact GEOS was one of the saner, more comfortable places.

Lah-de-dah, what a crazy world!!!

Hi Pen
Loved your last line!!! Gotta be true.

I hope they send all those copies of Cutting Edge (read Cutting Wrists) to the Antarctic, so no one has to endure them anymore.

Because he isnt really a reporter, if he is on this site looking for contacts.

From ABC above:

The (GEOS) colleges were members of industry group English Australia, which means English Australia now takes responsibility for finding places in other colleges for the GEOS students.

I presume then this means that English Australia shoulders the costs of tuition for the students who want to continue in other colleges - and hopefully that means that it's English Australia who'll go after GEOS for the original (students') money.

Nice :)

In Australia GEOS we knew it was coming if we had any nonce. Now that its over, don't you honestly feel a little, little bit of relief that you can now move back to a "normal" life?

Oh, Thorn, where are you?

I understand this much about Thorn: I know how it feels to be telling everyone what is going to happen and nobody will believe you. Thorn, you warned us.

Honestly, nobody outside of Japan believes any bad news about Japan. It's all happy, happy, joy, joy about Japan out there and if you try to tell them otherwise then you are a racist, etc. Japan love it or leave it, etc. Why do people in the outside world have such set ideas about how wonderful it is here?

Suffering from Cassandra Syndrome today. Next will be the money trail, the hidden accounts, the scam of corporate education will out.

Just checked Sarah Mennie's status with the Adelaide Sunday Mail newsdesk. She is legit. Main role apparently is a Medical Reporter so she should be well qualified to report on this sick outfit!

Give her a call (see her earlier post) and vent. Its a great opportunity to get the story out onto the News Corp papers.

I don't know who this alleged "school owner" is as, in Australia, the majority of reputable institutions are generally not 'one professed owner establishments' ...but GEOS teachers in Australia should be aware that they have rights; will be protected under government regulations in the event of such closures; need to fill out the necessary government forms and applications; and should attend and be aware of any of the upcoming meetings that will help to assure they are properly remunerated.

As to Government awards, I would disagree that they are "absurd". They are designed to properly protect professional teachers and keep the industry accountable and regulated. Surely this is what we would all want for our industry.

I do agree that agents will no longer send students to GEOS - why would they? However, agents are not the people who will be able to determine existing students' futures...again, this is now a matter for the appropriate government bodies - which is a good thing in a very bad situation and very much preferable to disreputable or unrecognised institutions attempting to 'make a buck' out of a truly terrible situation for international students. Their situation is a terrible one, but I am certainly glad that recognised and regulated government bodies are the ones now responsible for the ongoing placement and tuition of these students.

This is a terrible situation for the students, and a terrible situation for dedicated teams of professional teaching and administrative staff.

To the "school owner", specifically, you are not who or what you profess to be and, even it were the case, I would suggest that a bit of compassion is perhaps a better approach...that's my 'tip' for today.

Good luck to all

Different places do have different rules.
In NZ, all student fees are in a trust fund and paid back to the school fortnightly (I think) as they 'use' the pre-paid weeks. It guards against unscrupulous managers running off with money, and against bankruptcy leaving students out of pocket. I don’t think Oz has this (though maybe for homestay fees), but as some people have mentioned there is something in an Act and something in EA about other school having t take in there now school-less students. I don’t know who funds that, though.
Fair points made about visas, too – some will have very specific visas and might have issues with getting them changed.
And yes, GEOS Japan did take a lot of GEOS Oz’s profit, and not really send it back...I heard about that though my own colleagues and through people I knew working for GEOS Oz
Also, to the people debating about the language level of Principals etc. GEOS NZ had teachers and DoSs as usual, but also a Director or Principal who runs ‘the whole school branch’, not just the teaching side of things and there’s no requirement for that person to be an educator or have a certain English level – it’s a business role.

Good god!
Writing in a hurry, and damn spellchecker didn't do the 'this word looks out of place' blue underlining....
"...something in EA about other schools having to take in these now school-less students. I don’t know who funds that, though.
Fair points made about visas, too – some will have very specific visas and might have issues with getting them changed.
And yes, GEOS Japan did take a lot of GEOS Oz’s profit, and not really send it back...I heard about that through ...

This is how the honchos in NZ do it. The college sets in place a:

Student Fee Protection Trust deed and related account, with an independent chartered accountant, for the protection of students’ fees in accordance with the statutory requirements under section 253(1) of the Education Act 1989 and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority Private Training Establishment registration requirements.

'Course this type of thing was all too hard for us Ozzies and we concentrated on quality assurance things like student brochure, and advertising ethics and the standard of toilets and all those type of important things,

And then the chickens come home to roost.

It is clear that you simply have no idea what you're talking about, how do you know about the financials of GEOS Australia?