The recent NOVA problems have led to new found interests in Foreign workers, especially English Instructors, among Japanese news media. NHK jumped on the bandwagon and aired this segment a little while ago.
It's in Japanese but the interviewees speak English.
The report sums up the few problems that one might have living and working in Japan, mainly how difficult it is to get on "social insurance", AKA medical insurance, how fragile the one-year employment contract actually is, and how the big corporations only care about their money, not the teachers nor the students.
It's a known issue among experienced teachers in Japan that NOVA is one of the worst places to work for. But new expats always fall prey to the easy job. On top of that most Japanese only know NOVA - the McDonald's of English language learning.
2 comments:
While I sympathize with the NOVA teachers (particularly if the story is true about the insurance problems) ... I tend to have more sympathy for the immigrants to Japan from the Middle East and SE Asia who work hard, dangerous jobs to support their families, often off the books, are isolated from society because they speak neither Japanese nor English, and face the "anxiety" not of a one year contract but of immediate deportation should the authorities find out.
A lot of the newbies who get sucked into a NOVA job are young single people from developed countries looking for an exotic adventure who have no employable skills in Japan besides being a native English speaker. Compared to the jobs most non-English speakers in the US end up doing, teaching at NOVA doesn't seem too bad ...
agree with you there.
NOVA really isn't as bad as some others but their recent problems bring attention to foreign workforce that has largely been ignored by the media.
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