Japan Ichiban! Number One!

Why Australian GEOS Schools closed
As the former DoS, as of yesterday, of one of the GEOS schools in Australia, I can say with authority, that if it hadn’t been for the fact that Japan was in financial trouble and as such sifening off millions of dollars from Australia to try and save operations there, we would still be opperational. The Australian schools all had plenty of students and were making money, but all of that money has found its way to Japan with the biggest problem being they have also taken the fees paid by future students, leaving nothing to pay for the running costs here! It makes me incredibly angry that Japan are claiming no responsibility for this, but of course it is also no big surprise. However with the cash cow now gone I can’t see that the rest of the GEOS opperations can last. If you have anything to do with them in Japan or another country I would strongly advise getting out now!

The rumors were true.
The dominoes are falling.
Won’t be long now. More homeless unemployed English teachers to hit the streets soon.
First cracks in Japan will be that students upon hearing of the Australian closure will quit and demand refunds.
Existing and new students will not re-sign their next contracts.
New customers will steer well clear of GEOS.
If they are still running by the end of next month it will be purely on the fumes of an oily rag.

Eight English language schools in limbo January 29, 2010
AAP

Eight English language schools operated in Australia by the GEOS group have gone into voluntary administration, leaving about 2300 foreign students unsure of their future.

Justin Walsh and Adam Nikitins of Ernst & Young have been appointed administrators to nine companies operating the schools in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Cairns.

They have about 390 employees and international students from a number of different countries.

“The financial position of the companies is such that the directors appointed voluntary administrators,” Mr Walsh and Mr Nikitins said in a statement on Friday.

“School operations have been temporarily suspended while the financial situation of the companies and ability to fund future operations of the schools is assessed over the next few days.”

The companies under administration are: GEOS Melbourne Pty Ltd, GEOS Adelaide Pty Ltd, GEOS Sydney Pty Ltd, GEOS Cairns Pty Ltd, GEOS Gold Coast Pty Ltd, GEOS Perth Pty Ltd, GEOS Brisbane Pty Ltd, GEOS Management Services Pty Ltd and GEOS National English Academy Pty Ltd.

The administrators said a better understanding of the financial situation and a decision on future operations should be known by the close of business on February 1.

“Employees, students and creditors will be advised as soon as possible,” they said.

© 2010 AAP

ANOTHER private English college has closed on the northern beaches leaving teachers and students in the dark over their future.

At 4pm last Friday GEOS Sydney’s Manly Campus was closed and the administrators brought in. Campus doors were locked, with the only information available to the 80 students and eight teachers a note stuck to the window.

It read: “Unfortunately GEOS Australia will be closed from Monday 1st February until further notice. As soon as we have more information regarding the future of the school you will be contacted by person.”

It is the second English language college to close on the northern beaches inside three months after Maewill English College in Brookvale entered voluntary administration last November.

Justin Walsh and Adam Nikitins, of Ernst and Young, have been appointed voluntary administrators to the GEOS group which operate eight schools across Australia, with about 390 employees and about 2300 international students.

“The financial position of the companies is such that the directors appointed voluntary administrators,” a statement from the administrators said. “School operations have been temporarily suspended while the financial situation of the companies and ability to fund future operations is assessed.”

A teacher at GEOS Sydney, who did not wish to be named, said she was angry to learn of the closure. “It is going to be really difficult for people like me who only have $20 in the bank because I will have to find another job quickly,” she said.

“Normally when you lose your job you get a retrenchment or notice but we are getting nothing and it is appalling.”

She said last month the owners had quashed rumours that the school would be closing. “We got a letter closure rumours were hurting the business and that everything was okay.”

The college’s international students will be found alternative placements under the Tuition Assurance Scheme (TAS) which protects the interests of student’s studying in Australian on student visas.

Just in my mail box from ETJ (English Teacher’s Of Japan).

There have been rumors that Geos is in trouble since last September when a Geos spokesman admitted that sales were down and that the Nova collapse had caused ‘distrust among the public about English language schools’. The EL Gazette now reports that Geos is strongly denying the rumors.

According to the report, Chad Lafferty, Geos Teaching Ltd’s human resources director, said ‘Opening and closing locations is a normal part of business… The global recession has certainly impacted the way we do business but it would be wrong to say that any closures of the company are directly related to the recession.’ He went on to say that ‘Geos hasn’t laid off a single employee due to business results or the recession. Furthermore, we have no plans to do so.’

Click here to see the EL Gazette article (you will need to register). The digital version of EL Gazette, a news magazine for English language teachers around the world, is published monthly and can be accessed free of charge.

When Japanichiban started out many moons ago as a job support and advice organisation before the internet was even getting off the ground, we had an ad in the old Tokyo Classifieds advertising our services. It was a phone in help line and I remember our first person to use the service was a young lady from Geos on the verge of suicide. That was close to 15 years ago now and Geos are still ticking.

Let’s Japan started out their site also from Geos experiences as an outlet for teachers to debunk the myths of teaching English in Japan, especially for Geos.

Nova fell as have countless other English schools but Geos just keep on ticking away.

This latest news? Could this really be the end?

From Wiki!

An article in The Japan Times noted the deplorable working conditions of GEOS staff. In 1999, the company was taken to court by fourteen of its managers over unpaid overtime. At the time of the case, the main plaintiff said that she was working a 72-hour week under constant unmanageable pressure to increase sales at her school. Even though the managers won their suit, costing GEOS 300 million yen in unpaid overtime, the media mostly overlooked the case. In the same article, managers noted high staff-turnover and long working hours. However, a spokeswoman for the company insisted that GEOS, and the language learning industry as a whole, provided women with rare opportunities to begin business careers.[6]
Recent economic woes have lead Geos to be late paying the Japanese staff in August and September 2009. It is further reported that foreign teachers working at the adult schools were not paid on time in October 2009. Geos is currently asking clients to pay as much as 5 months in advance for the following year’s lessons in a bid to raise the necessary funds to meet payroll obligations. This financial distress has led many Japanese staff members to resign.[7]
GEOS began closing some of its branches in Japan in 2007, with more than 10% of domestic branches shuttering their doors in under two years. At its height, GEOS maintained teacher recruitment centers in London, Melbourne, Toronto, and Vancouver. Melbourne closed in March 2004, London and Toronto in October 2006, and the Vancouver center closed in October 2008.