David English House in Hiroshima, a well respected school run by author and all round booster of professionalism in Nippon David Paul, closed for business on 1 September leaving him personally bankrupt. Sounds like they managed the process well, though, according to the ELTNews website (also set up by him I think), and ETJ (English Teachers in Japan) will carry on doing their stirling work organising conferences etc. I heard mixed things about working for DEH, but they were most certainly a good influence on an industry that was desperately lacking in exactly that.
British Council Osaka will also close its doors this month, leaving just one BC in the whole of Japan, down from four to six at its peak, depending on who I talk to (none of whom are actually involved in the matter, I must admit- this ain’t the EL Gazette, my friend!)
The best ever Eikaiwa debunking site, Let’s Japan, got in there first with a post on the former. Interesting comments too.
TEFLtastic 
That’s a shame. I’ve met David personally and presented at an event with him – he’s a good guy, and he’s produced some really great material.
Interesting thing to me (personally, selfishly), I keep hearing about more and more major name school closures in Japan, and I continue to pick up droves of online students from Japan. So my online teaching business is definitely benefitting from this, but I wonder how representative it might be of a change in approach from Japanese students – going more for online programs?
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I can’t really praise David Paul or DEH. He had a clear conflict of interest with ETJ in that he used ETJ to promote, for the most part, teaching children, his main interest in selling his materials. I did a lot of unpaid work for ETJ, 2000-5 but finally decided enough was enough because they wouldn’t let people organize ETJ chapters for ALL age levels of ELT. As for the sort of small school/operator who is so interested in what DEH had to offer, they can be as exploitative of teachers as the big firms.
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Any further comment on the Interac rumour? Seems unlikely to me at this stage.
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The only info I have is those forum posts, but I really don’t see what the Board of Education would want to cancel all those contracts halfway through a school year just because the company had restructured
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Let’s Japan has done that one too, and seems to back up my conclusion
http://www.letsjapan.org/shawn/2010/09/26/interac-no-more.html#comments
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