Native name シェーン英会話 Industry English schools Area served Japan | Romanized name Shēn Eikaiwa Founded 1977 | |
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Services English conversation instruction | ||
Shane English School (シェーン英会話, Shēn Eikaiwa) is an English conversation school in Japan. It was founded by Shane Lipscome in Chiba Prefecture in 1977. Formerly part of the Saxoncourt Group, it is now owned by the cram school operator Eikoh. As of March 2017, it has 206 branches located all over Japan. As of November 2013, it had about 20,000 students throughout Japan.
Contents
History
In 2001, after an education ministry panel recommended English education at elementary schools, the company offered courses for Japanese elementary school teachers to prepare them for teaching English to their students.
In 2010, the company was purchased by the cram school operator Eikoh because they wanted to move into the teaching of 5th- and 6th-grade students due to the new compulsory English teaching at that age level. At that time, it operated 199 schools in the Kantō region — of which 46 were franchised—and had four subsidiaries: Shane Corporation Japan, Shane Corporation Kita Kanto, Shane Corporation Higashi Kanto, and Shane Corporation Minami Kanto.
Saxoncourt recruits teachers for the company, largely from the United Kingdom, though some teachers are also hired from within Japan.
Controversies
The company has repeatedly drawn condemnation from teachers for the fact that it only allows 30 minutes to plan up to 6.5 hours of teaching lessons. The reason it does this is to limit teachers' hours to below 30 hours per week. If any worker in Japan works over 30 hours, then the company would be liable to pay Japanese social insurance for the worker. Teachers who work in the Corporate Sales Department generally have 15–20 minutes in which to plan an entire day's teaching. Teachers claim that, given the long teaching days, to guarantee quality, 6.5 hours of teaching will need longer than 15 minutes' worth of planning. The company disagrees.
The company has recently started the process of firing long-term teachers, to avoid having to give them permanent employment under the Japanese government's recently introduced five-year rule. The five-year rule mandates that any teacher who is employed y the company for five continuous years must be given permanent, lifetime employment. The firings have sparked interest in the Shane Teachers' Union as teachers attempt to hold onto their jobs. This union holds regular collective bargaining meetings with upper management to demand changes to union members' pay and conditions and the reinstatement of illegally dismissed teachers. In addition to collective bargaining, the union also meets with upper management (plus Alex Cox) at the Tokyo Labour Relations Commission.
In March 2017, two teachers filed a suit against the company, claiming wrongful dismissal.