A union for Nova Corp. employees is calling on students and teachers to meet outside their old schools Saturday so they can find a way to continue classes independently of the failed foreign-language school chain.
The union is organizing the campaign to give both students and teachers an opportunity to negotiate their own terms for lessons, said Kristen Moon of the Nova branch of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu.
Moon said all the union is asking is that teachers and students show up at their local schools at noon. Terms for lessons or language exchanges can then be negotiated freely, she said.
"So many students are looking for teachers and so many teachers are looking for work," said Moon, explaining why the union decided to launch the campaign.
Nova shut down its schools on Oct. 26, the day it filed for protection from creditors with the Osaka District Court.
Since then, the union has been getting e-mail from students looking for teachers, said Moon, who worked at Nova's Gyotoku school in Chiba Prefecture.
The union hopes the campaign continues nationwide for the next few weeks at schools from Hokkaido to Okinawa, she said.
It is also organizing another campaign for Saturday, called "Lessons for Food," in which teachers will provide lessons in exchange for basic meals.
Details are available on the union's Web site at nambufwc.org/