Recent press articles on Nova and the language industry in general
THE ZEIT GIST
English schools face huge insurance probe
Government agency to investigate illegal non-enrollment of teachers in health, pension schemes
By BARRY BROPHY
The Social Insurance Agency is to investigate Japan's largest English-language teaching companies over a suspected failure to enroll their full-time foreign employees in the employees' pension and health insurance schemes.
Japan's largest "eikaiwa" chain, Nova, is already being probed by the Social Insurance Agency and could see itself slapped with a multibillion-yen bill for missed payments.
The agency has been investigating Nova since the end of March and expects to have its results at the end of May or beginning of June.
But Nova is not the only company in the ministry's sights.
"It's not just Nova that has been failing to enroll its employees. There are other large eikaiwa companies that are in a similar situation," says Noboru Sugiyama, deputy director of the Health Insurance Division of the Social Insurance Agency. Sugiyama is heading the Nova probe.
The failure of many companies to register employees in Japan's pension and health schemes is costing the government billions of yen a year in lost payments.
"We have had many requests to clarify and tighten the (pension/health) systems," he says, "and we will launch an investigation of the eikaiwa industry."
Non-enrollment of full-time employees is illegal in Japan, where the Health Insurance Law and Employees' Pension Law stipulate that companies must enroll all workers who have been in Japan for over two months in both the health insurance and pension systems, regardless of nationality.
Under these laws, the burden of payment is split between employer and employee, with each paying half the monthly premium amount.
The General Union in Osaka has estimated conservatively that Nova saves itself at least 1 billion yen annually in premium payments by not enrolling its teachers in the health insurance and pension schemes.
Nova policy demands that all new teachers have insurance before they arrive in Japan.
But foreign teachers who are employed by Nova have not been told in the past that enrollment in the Employees' Insurance System is compulsory and are instead offered private health insurance schemes, one of which -- Japan Medical Assistance -- is a Nova-group company.
The issue was brought to the the agency's attention after the union filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office in Osaka accusing Nova of failing to obey the law.
Nova has admitted that it does not automatically enroll its workers, even though all Nova teachers are employed on a one-year contract basis. Instead it says it lets its instructors join the health and pension schemes "when they wish to."
Nova declined repeated requests for an interview, and a list of questions e-mailed to the company's head office in Osaka last week went unanswered.
Although Sugiyama concedes that the Social Insurance Agency has had problems enforcing participation, a failure to enroll still constitutes a breach of the law.
"In the worst sense it's breaking the law," he says.
"When foreigners come to a country, of course it's a basic rule that they enter that country's social insurance system according to the law."
Under Japanese law, the employer, not the employee, is liable for punishment for failure to enroll or pay premiums.
And Sugiyama says the SIA cannot rule out hitting Nova with a hefty back bill.
"It's not impossible that there will be individual cases involving back payments, though the emphasis will be on what to do from now on."
"If there are people who should have originally enrolled, we will ask them to enroll."
Dennis Tesolat, of the General Union, says that under the law, Nova is obliged to enroll all full-time workers in the two schemes, irrespective of whether employees want it or not.
"It is 100 percent the responsibility of companies to enroll their employees," he says.
The point of lodging the complaint, says Tesolat, is not to see Nova punished in any way, however. "The purpose of this action is not to punish the companies but to make sure that the people who work for these companies are getting adequate health care. It is expensive; it doesn't offer the coverage it should, but it is better than not having it at all."
He also believes that eikaiwa employees may benefit in other ways from the investigation and subsequent enrollment in the system.
"This investigation could result in an increase in wages for teachers, since Nova may have trouble attracting new teachers if they don't raise wages in line with newly imposed premium payments."
Nova has claimed it is difficult to convince its teachers of the merits of joining the health and pension systems because of the short duration of most teachers' stays in Japan.
According to the union, Nova has some 5,000 foreign teachers that it has not enrolled in the health insurance and pension schemes. The union also estimates that some 4,500 Nova teachers have JMA insurance.
"Nova's position has been 'We know the teachers are eligible, but it's not necessary to enroll them. Furthermore, teachers don't want to join,' " says Dennis Tesolat. But Tesolat believes this is the inevitable result of a lack of information provided to teachers.
"If teachers get no information about the schemes, then of course they're not going to want to join them," he says.
But Tesolat says teachers he has spoken to have expressed their support for joining the system.
The Justice Ministry estimates that some 90 percent of foreign residents in Japan stay for three years or less. For eikaiwa teachers, however, that figure rises to between 96 and 97 percent, making it possible for most to get an almost full refund of their pension premiums.
Under Japan's Lump Sum Withdrawal Payment system, foreigners who have been paying into the pension scheme for at least six months and up to three years can get back 90 percent of premiums paid. There is no refund of health insurance payments.
Bob Tench, president of the Nova Union, says that Nova's failure to enroll its teachers while offering JMA insurance is irresponsible.
"This JMA insurance is only designed to 'patch you up and ship you home,' " he says. "JMA is travel insurance and should not be used for everyday health care.
"The government and the teachers are being ripped off," he says.
Moreover, the underwriters of the JMA scheme, Mitsui Sumitomo, have told the General Union that Nova suggested that all its teachers were part of the health and pension systems.
Mitsui Sumitomo also said that no resident of Japan can be offered JMA-type insurance unless already enrolled in the national system.
Additional reporting by Tony McNicol
Send comments to: community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: April 12, 2005
(C) All rights reservedClass action
Language teachers turn to unions for protection from unscrupulous employers,
By TONY MCNICOL
What would you do if you were sacked for "clicking your pen too much in class," or for "talking to yourself during your break" . . . or how about for "only eating the topping on your rice during lunch?"
These are all actual reasons given for showing English teachers the door, says Louis Carlet, who works for a union representing several hundred language teachers in the Tokyo area.
"The biggest problem for foreign teachers is arbitrary dismissal . . . complete disregard for and flagrant violation of the labor laws."
The office of the National Union of General Workers is well hidden down a narrow Shinbashi backstreet.
At the top of a flight of rickety stairs, the pokey office has posters of Che Guevara and John Lennon decorating the walls. A mobile P.A. system is parked in one corner and a white-board displays scribbled details of the union's main campaigns.
Its relatively small, but the union includes a rapidly growing membership of several hundred foreign workers, mostly language instructors. Twenty or so e-mails a day land in Carlet's inbox from teachers saying they have been unfairly sacked, or with complaints about working conditions.
"There is no doubt in my mind that foreigners get fired much easier than Japanese," says Carlet. "I have seen it everywhere . . . there is this perception that the labor laws don't really apply to foreigners -- even though they do."
The union is usually juggling a number of different cases at any one time; negotiating with mom-and-pop language schools that renege on contracts or hold back overtime pay, to taking on big chains that the union believes are elbowing out their most experienced (and best-paid) staff to cut costs.
In one protest last Tuesday, around 50 union supporters gathered outside Nova's Shinjuku Honko school to protest the recent dismissal of 5 teachers, three of whom had been working at Nova for more than 10 years. All were members of the Nova union -- a branch of the NUGW. The union alleges they were dismissed because of their union activities.
As the largest and best known employer of English teachers in Japan, Nova is an obvious target.
"We see Nova as the flagship English conversation school," says Carlet. "When Nova makes a major change, it affects the whole industry."
In 1994, the company attempted to submit all their foreign staff to compulsory drugs tests after the arrest of one foreign teacher for a drugs offense. After the fuss kicked up by the unions at the time, no teacher has ever been tested -- although it remains in Nova contracts all the same.
More recently, the infamous "non socialization clause" in Nova contracts banning teachers from socializing with Nova students also seems to have been quietly forgotten.
Since this February when the Osaka Bar Council criticized the policy, the NUGW say they haven't had a single report of its enforcement.
Because of these high profile victories, the big language chains these days know they can't break the labor laws with impunity.
"People are coming with more regular cases now, it's not always the worst problems," says Denis Tesolat of the Osaka Union, which represents language teachers in the Kansai area.
"The big schools now follow most of the labor standards law and the employment law."
On the other hand, smaller schools throw up plenty of problems, large and small. According to the unions, many managers presume teachers won't have access to information about the labor laws -- or in many cases the managers don't know the laws themselves.
Yet despite successes, the unions still faces serious obstacles, not least simply making teachers aware that they are there. "I haven't really thought of joining a union in Japan," says Wendy Partnoy an elementary school ALT teacher in Hyogo prefecture.
"Everything is different over here and I am concentrating more on surviving than thinking about things like unions. I have never met an English teacher who is a member of a union."
Carlet says that one problem is that many teachers tend not to think of joining the NUGW until they already have a problem.
What the union needs to keep them in the black are more regular members; then they can deal with teachers who have run into trouble.
The union also faces some not particularly subtle obstruction from schools. Managers have been known to tell newly arrived teachers that the NUGW is a cult or connected to the yakuza.
An additional headache is high staff turnover, which often means that even if a handful of employees form a branch at one school, they can all have gone within months.
One large chain which employs non-native English speakers on short-term contracts generates numerous complaints, but, "even before we start a dispute, the individual normally leaves the company," laments Carlet.
So, at the end of the day, what can the unions do for you as a language instructor? Supposing you are fired on a whim or conditions are poor, why create more problems for yourself?
Wouldn't it be easier to change jobs -- or just cut your losses and buy a ticket on the next plane home?
Until August this year, David Jobson was working for an ALT dispatch company in Saitama prefecture. He lost his job three weeks after attempting to set up a union branch at the company and is fighting for reinstatement.
Does he regret protesting?
"The way it currently works is that it's just a slide to the bottom, right? Whatever English teacher can suck up most to the management and rat out his other employees will ensure his job."
"Well, my argument is, there is another way to ensure everybody's job security -- and that's joining the union."
HAVE YOU BEEN UNFAIRLY TREATED BY YOUR EMPLOYER? SEND YOUR STORY TO community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: Nov. 23, 2004
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'No sex please, you're teachers'
Nova teachers unhappy with rules, reports
By TONY MCNICOL
"I feel offended that anyone would tell me who I can or can't hang out with," says Brendan (not his real name), one of 6,000 foreign language instructors employed by Nova Corp. in Japan.
News photo
Nova Corp. Schools, where foreign teachers give English classes in glass-walled cubicles, are omnipresent around Japan.
According to the language school chain's instructor contract, foreign employees are forbidden to "participate in any interaction with the clients of the employer outside the place of employment." In theory, insist Nova instructors, they are under threat of the sack for so much as a chance encounter with any of the company's 450,000 students.
"Instructors can be harassed and disciplined for socializing with people they don't even know are Nova students," says Robert Bisom, one of two plaintiffs who took a case against Nova to the Osaka Bar Association last year.
Earlier this year the lawyers' group issued a ruling against Nova saying that it was wrong for the company to "unilaterally prohibit socialization of employees, which is essentially private and free behavior." The lawyers' group also pointed out that the rule was only applied to foreign staff -- in effect, a form of racial discrimination.
Nova employees claim that the rule is hypocritical to boot since many of the foreign "trainers" likely to report teachers for "fraternization" are frequently guilty of the same offense.
"I do know of trainers that have gone to parties with the students, I have seen that for myself," says one teacher in his 30s from north Osaka. Other teachers claim that the rule is doubly hypocritical because many of Nova's foreign managers are married to ex-students themselves.
Although not legally binding, bar association rulings in Japan are usually very influential. When Nova attempted to force its teachers to take drug tests in the mid 1990s, the Osaka Bar Association issued a ruling saying that Nova's actions were illegal. To date, no teacher has been drug tested by the company in Japan.
After this year's ruling, Nova said in its defense that the 10-year-old clause in their contracts was introduced to "protect both the teachers and the students from trouble, as they do not know each other's cultures and customs." A Nova director, Yukitomo Ishimatsu, put it slightly more graphically: "We cannot allow kissing or improper conduct (in our schools)."
News photo
"Now that they are cornered, Nova is starting to drum up the fear of foreigners thing," says Bisom. "It's socially and politically irresponsible." He says that, in any case, the rule is almost impossible to enforce and in fact broken at least as often as it's kept.
According to Nova's company profile, posted in English on their Web site, "Nova aims to create an age in which communication crosses geographical borders, and lines of nationality, race, culture, and language; an age in which people can communicate whenever, wherever, and with whomever they choose."
However, when contacted last week and asked for the reason behind their nonsocialization policy, Nova replied by e-mail (in Japanese) that "since it is necessary to explain (the reasons for) the rule by reference to the cultural background of Japanese people, it will be extremely difficult to reply in a limited amount of time or written reply."
Other big language schools say that they don't particularly encourage or discourage socialization between staff and students. A spokesman for ECC said that "It's not up to us how teachers behave outside class. That should depend on teacher's own morals."
Things aren't made any easier for teachers and students by some language school advertising that subtly (or not so subtly) plays toward aspirations of international romance. One language school poster for a large chain (not Nova) shows a young women handcuffed to her smartly suited foreign instructor. Another features a cartoon-drawn female student straddling a rocket and staring deeply into the eyes of a handsome Caucasian-looking man.
"Practically speaking, it's hard to stop teachers socializing with students," says Mark McBennett, editor of English Language Teaching News. "A lot of students come for the social side of things rather than strictly just to learn English."
Some believe Nova is caught in a Catch-22 situation: they can't be seen to be condoning unprofessional behavior by their instructors, but they can't afford to alienate those students who may have things other than the search for pure knowledge in mind when they come to learn English.
Others speculate that Nova is worried about teachers arranging to meet up with their students for private classes. In a highly competitive market, no language school can afford to lose students.
The teacher's working environment, at least, makes life difficult for any would-be moonlighters.
"We teach in tiny cubicles that adjoin each other and are glass from the waist up," says Brendan. "We always feel like we are being watched. This really adds to the stress of teaching."
Other teachers talk about an atmosphere of "paranoia." All the current Nova teachers contacted for this article requested that their full names not be used. One teacher, contacted by e-mail, asked for proof that we were really writing for The Japan Times and not undercover Nova management.
Rancorous relations between staff and managers is a problem in many of Japan's language schools, says Shawn Thir, who used to teach at a large chain school, and runs an Internet bulletin board for language teachers.
"I think it's because of the high staff turnover. There is never a chance to build any trust between anybody."
Bisom points out that teachers are left highly dependent on their schools; the "eikaiwa" schools are normally responsible for their teachers' visas, and often their apartments. Many teachers are young, frequently in their first or second jobs and in an unfamiliar country. Unsociable hours can make it difficult to meet new people.
"The only Japanese people they meet here in their first year, generally speaking, who can speak English, are their students." And if teachers are unable to speak Japanese, they are likely to end up spending all their time with other language teachers.
"Teachers are kept cowed and obedient because they don't know what to expect and are intimidated by the laws of a new country," says one ex-teacher from Tokyo.
"It means that they don't really have an experience of Japan," says Bisom. "They have an experience of hanging out with foreigners."
"What business is it of Nova's what we do in our free time? We're adults, let us make our own choices," argues one Osaka teacher.
Send your comments to community@japantimes.co.jp
The Japan Times: June 1, 2004
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Teachers oppose Nova ban on interaction with students
Saturday, March 1, 2003 at 09:30 JST
OSAKA ― A teacher and a former teacher at the Osaka-based Nova foreign-language school have sought the Osaka Bar Association's help in protecting their human rights, saying that Nova Co's ban on personal interaction between teachers and students is discriminatory.
Robert Bisom, 59, a U.S. citizen, filed the plea together with a 46-year-old male Australian teacher who was fired by Nova, apparently for having a relationship with a student.
The former teacher filed a suit with the Osaka District Court last December seeking to nullify his dismissal.
According to the plea submitted to the Osaka Bar Association, Nova prohibits personal ties between students and teachers in its employment contract, and in the past has dismissed teachers for breaking the ban, including a teacher who became engaged to a student.
Bisom and the Australian say that the provision in the contract amounts to racial discrimination since it applies only to foreigners.
The same day, Bisom also asked for help from the Osaka Prefectural Labor Relations Commission, saying that Nova had treated him unfairly by failing to give him a pay hike because of his union activities.
Yukitomo Ishimatsu, a Nova director, said Thursday that the provision in the contract banning interaction between students and teachers is "necessary to prevent trouble between foreign teachers and Japanese students who have different cultures."
He said that it is a "distortion of facts" to say that all teachers who break the ban are dismissed.
"I cannot believe that they are saying there is racial discrimination, when it is our policy only to employ foreigners as teachers," he said.
The provision in the contract says, "The employee shall treat the clients of the employer in a professional manner at all times. Further, the employee shall not initiate, agree to or participate in any interaction with the clients of the employer outside the place of employment."
Ishimatsu said that Nova will not allow personal interaction even if it takes place inside the school.
"We operate schools, and our schools are no different from other schools. We cannot allow kissing or improper conduct," he said. (Kyodo News)
Draft stresses shift to practical language classes
By MAYUMI NEGISHI
Staff writer
In the future, high school students may be taught to gesture like foreigners while in language class, but the latest draft of teaching guidelines proposed by the Education Ministry will probably not be enough for them to feel at ease with their English-speaking skills anytime soon, critics say.
"Schools have a fundamentally different concept of English language education" compared with private-conversation schools, said Yukitomo Ishimatsu, a representative of Nova Corp., the nation's leading English school chain. "While we think of English as a form of communication, (regular) schools still focus on the reading, writing, grammar and pronunciation that appears in tests."
Ishimatsu estimates that about 20 percent of Nova's students are in junior high, high school or college, and he does not expect this to change under the new guidelines.
In its latest draft of guidelines for language classes released earlier this month, the ministry encourages teachers to focus on gestures and eye contact and use "a wide range of actual examples," such as e-mail, speeches, debates and skits.
The draft is seen as a clear attempt to hammer home the importance of communication ability and endorses the continuation of oral communication classes, which began appearing in high school English language curricula in 1994, when the current teaching guidelines took effect.
Created to help foster practical communication ability instead of memorization skills, these classes were a response to criticism that the nation is raising students brilliant in grammar but literally tongue-tied when it comes to speaking another language.
However, efforts to encourage students to embrace these lessons are often thwarted by the time-tested conviction of students and educators that rote memorization leads to quick rewards in university entrance exams.
"Unfortunately, oral communication class time is sometimes used for reviewing grammar points and entrance exam questions," admits Masao Niisato, a senior foreign language curriculum specialist at the ministry's Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau.
The ministry has tried to move students away from rote memorization in its proposed draft, by cutting the minimum number of vocabulary words taught in English I, a required high school course, from 500 to 400.
Coupled with new cuts in the vocabulary load in junior high school curricula guidelines released in January, students will theoretically graduate from high school knowing 1,300 English words, compared with the current 1,500. "We want educators to become more aware that just because fewer words are taught, it does not necessarily mean less (content) is taught," Niisato said. "We want students to be able to truly master the vocabulary and grammar they acquire."
But critics question the effectiveness of reducing vocabulary and emphasizing conversational English in class.
Naomitsu Kumabe, a professor of English literature at Tokyo's Otsuma Women's University, worries that common conversation often taught in oral communication classes is in fact failing to raise students' interest in English. "If you want to heighten interest, you have to teach students the vocabulary they need to exchange views on issues that really matter to them," said Kumabe, who also heads the Institute for Research in Language Teaching, a nonprofit organization based in Tokyo.
Kumabe is especially critical of the tendency of oral communication classes to focus on daily conversation skills and its lessons on self-introductions, giving directions and talking to sales clerks.
Introducing yourself to a classmate you've known for years makes students feel foolish, giving directions based on a fictitious map is pointless and the only phrase most people use when talking to salespeople is "Just looking," Kumabe said.
"Are such lessons going to help students express their views in an international society?" Kumabe asked. It is "insulting" for young adults to go through such English lessons, he added.
Besides, no matter how much bureaucrats tinker with lesson content and curricula, such efforts cannot remove one glaring fact: students are immersed in a Japanese-speaking environment the moment they leave class. "What can an hour or two of oral communication (classes) a week do? You get the feeling that it's just there for show," complained Hisayuki Hashimoto, a 17-year-old student at Keio Boys' High School in Yokohama.
There were about 20 students in Hashimoto's 50-minute oral communication class last term. The class was held twice a week. This meant that if the instructor spoke for about 20 minutes per class, each student might get about three minutes a week to actually speak English, if the instructor wants to monitor student performance by having one student speak at a time.
"The (government's) teaching guidelines just show how idealistic the Education Ministry is," said Tsuyoshi Watanabe, who heads the foreign language department at a private boys' high school in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Physical limitations such as a shortage of class time and insufficient classroom equipment hinder the development of English proficiency under the curricula guidelines, thus it becomes increasingly important for teachers to instruct students to use the language outside of class, Watanabe said. "(More) time in the classroom should be used for students to solve (English language) problems that they can't solve on their own," he said.
The Japan Times: Mar. 18, 1999
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Nova should not ban teachers from dating students: lawyers
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 at 07:06 JST
OSAKA -The Osaka Bar Association on Tuesday urged Osaka-based Nova Co foreign language school to lift a ban on foreign teachers dating students and to nullify past dismissals of teachers for breaking the rule.
The management of Nova, however, said it "does not plan to remove the ban as it has been set in order to protect both the teachers and students from trouble as they do not know each other's cultures and customs."
(Kyodo News)
McEnglish for the masses
English teaching in Japan has mushroomed over the last decade, but at what price
By DAVID MCNEILL
American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term McDonaldization to describe how a method of production that originated in fast food restaurants is sweeping through every aspect of society.
Ritzer wondered why a system supposed to make life easier is slowly imprisoning us in an "iron cage" of rationality.
Efficiency and control reduce prices and increase access, but at a cost: McWages, bland products, and a rigid, controlled environment that drains all creativity from human activity.
If the eminent professor could see the state of English-language schools in Japan today he'd surely smile smugly and say, "I told you so."
While cheaper and more plentiful than ever, much of the English taught here is about as nutritious as a bag of salty fries, say those involved.
Lessons have morphed into sleek, bite-sized delivery systems staffed by teachers who are being transformed into the pedagogic equivalent of burger flippers.
Not surprisingly, the teachers are heading for the door in droves.
"The largest eikaiwa school has a staff turnover of 70 percent a year," says Dennis Tesolat, vice-chair of the General Union, which represents hundreds of teachers in Japan.
"They have guys whose job is it to go to the airports just to pick up new teachers. And that's because the teachers have a grueling schedule of eight lessons a day, with a 10-minute break between each. It's worse than a factory."
Old timers who stumbled into teaching in the 1960s and 70s will tell you they found an easygoing world of often amateur-run schools catering to large classes of earnest students.
"When I began teaching in the mid-1970s, I had 20 students but pay was 3,000 yen an hour and we worked just 20 hours a week," says Ken Noda, who teaches at a top eikaiwa chain in Tokyo.
"We worked half the average working week for the same wages. But this changed dramatically in the early 1990s."
With growing pressure on Japan to "globalize" and expand language-teaching, the government relaxed visa regulations and introduced guidelines for schools, setting pay at a minimum of 250,000 yen a month.
The initiative, and the general expansion of services in the 1990s, had dramatic results: The number of people entering Japan officially as "foreign humanities specialists" (including language teachers of all shades) mushroomed from about 15,000 in 1988 to over 44,000 in 2002, while the guidelines set a de-facto standard wage.
"When the government says minimum wage this of course means maximum," laughs Noda. "So pay came down, although the most striking change was the rise in working hours."
With labor expenses dropping as a percentage of total operating costs, the schools could bring what was once a luxury -- small classes -- to the masses.
The standard three-on-one ratio of students and teacher swept the country as the industry expanded and consolidated, and mass advertising re-branded what was once a fairly serious, bookish pursuit into a cheap and trendy pastime.
The eikaiwa industry today bears as much resemblance to its 1970's version as a sports utility vehicle to a Model-T Ford.
Of course, there are still prestige schools catering to niche markets, some still offering high wages (over 300,000 yen a month) and good working conditions, but the size and reach of the chain-schools tends to set the standard, say industry experts.
"The best way of describing the business over the last decade is that it has matured and consolidated," says Mark McBennett, Editor of English Language Teaching News.
The Big 5 of NOVA, Geos, Eon, ECC and Shane are now very efficient recruiting machines. "But very few students who attend the schools have a realistic idea of what it takes to actually master a language."
Like the ubiquitous fast-food restaurant, eikaiwa schools can now be found next to the station in most neighborhoods, bringing a convenient but low-nutrition product, often delivered by stressed, overworked staff.
"It's really tough," says teacher Bob Tench.
"As soon as you finish a class you're got 10 minutes to do the paperwork and pull the file for the next student out of the drawer.
"And in my opinion the quality of teaching suffers as a result," he says.
Teachers' responsibilities can sometimes extend beyond the classroom.
One manager at an English school for children in Tochigi Prefecture keeps her staff busy in between classes by having them clean the leaves on potted plants in the school reception area, congratulating them on how "green" the foliage looks when they've finished.
Others at the school are made to clean the soles of slippers left by the entrance for students' use.
At the other side of the classroom table, the students sense something is amiss.
"The teachers change a lot so you never get used to them," says Sugako Fujita, who attends a chain eikaiwa school in Kanagawa.
"I'm often put in classes with students of different levels just because we can make the same time. You can tell it's difficult for the teachers too."
The spread of McContracts means no effort is spared to make eikaiwa jobs as insecure as possible. Most firms employ teachers on 12-month renewable contracts, an arrangement that strays into a legal gray area after three years, when they are obliged to consider making staff permanent.
"The company knows it could get stuck with you for life," says McBennett. "So some are giving contracts for 364 days a year to avoid this."
In some of the bigger schools the working week has doubled to almost 40 hours, while others keep hours to below 30 to avoid having to pay public insurance, says Tesolat, who claims things are set to get worse as others, including public schools, copy the fast-food model.
"This is not even the beginning. We're starting to see the 250,000 yen threshold disappear. There are places now where you are getting 200,000 yen or 180,000 yen.
Public schools that used to hire directly are now hiring through dispatch companies. The people hired directly used to have paid holidays, insurance and other benefits, but now they're working 3 days a week.
"In one case in Hirakata City, the school pays 23,000 yen per day per teacher to a dispatch company, but the teacher gets just 10,000 yen."
Are universities safe from McDonaldization?
Not likely. Student numbers are falling, budgets are being slashed, and the Diet passed a law last summer converting all the nation's state-run universities into independent corporations, effectively making the 120,000 public servants who staff them into private employees.
More short-term contracts and dispatch hiring are sure to follow; and the writing is already on the wall.
"The last really good offer I had was six years ago, when I was offered a full-time tenured position," says Steve Ross, who teaches part-time at a number of top Tokyo universities. "It's not something you can plan your life around."
Where is all this heading? A large school points to one possible direction.
Operating a one-to-one teaching system, the school specializes in hiring non-native speakers, all on part-time contracts, from the Philippines, India and other low-wage economies.
Would you like fries with that English lesson?
Are you a teacher or student of English?
Send your tales of life inside and outside the classroom to community@japantimes.co.jp and if your story gets printed, we'll send you a 2,000 yen voucher for Tower Records.
The Japan Times: Feb. 24, 2004
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