JAPAN’S largest language school, Nova, filed Friday for bankruptcy protection, leaving thousands of foreign teachers without work or wages.

Nova’s once ubiquitous blue-and-yellow signs, which famously advertised an experience akin to “a study abroad trip” in the middle of Japan’s crowded cities, were being taken down as the schools shuttered their doors.

The chain of schools has taught English and other foreign languages to hundreds of thousands of Japanese ranging from businesspeople to pensioners looking for a hobby.

It filed for protection from creditors at the Osaka District Court four months after the government ordered it to halt part of its operations over insufficient refunds to students who had canceled contracts.

Nova came under intense public criticism over the scandal and has since struggled to keep remaining students. Many of its employees, including foreign teachers, have not been paid recently.

“Some people are just in despair. They don’t know what they’re going to do, what they’re going to eat, how they’re going to pay the bills,” said Bob Tench, a Nova teacher from Manchester, England.

Tench, who has been in Japan for 13 years and is involved with the teachers’ union, said he had enough savings to stay, but that other language schools were flooded with applications from instructors.

Teachers’ blogs were also rife with frustration.

“This whole situation has made me the most angry I’ve ever been in my life,” one writer fumed.

Nova had an estimated 400,000 students and 6,000 employees. Some 4,000 of the employees are foreigners — many of them young people looking to spend a few years in Japan.

The foreign language school is burdened with debts amounting to 43.9 billion yen (US$385 million), according to Japanese media.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said he felt sorry about the situation.

“Such a big company is going bankrupt, and this creates the possibility that the pre-paid fees would not be returned. This is really serious,” Fukuda told reporters.

Nova was founded in 1981 at the height of Japan’s economic miracle by Nozomu Sahashi, who was keeping a low profile Friday.

(SD-Agencies)