Thousands of foreign teachers, including 900 from Britain, face redundancy, financial misery and eviction from their homes after the collapse of Nova, Japan’s largest chain of English language schools.

Sources at the British and Australian embassies in Tokyo told The Times that they were expecting a “significant exodus” of teachers as unpaid staff struggle to find new jobs and buckle under Japan’s hefty cost of living.

The 900 British teachers, a similar number from Australia and about 1,300 from the US have been plunged into legal limbo. For many the lack of salary could leave them homeless within a few days because their rent is paid direct to landlords by the company.

One British teacher who rents his own apartment said that he was expecting a flood of other teachers sleeping on his floor as they struggle to find new jobs in a limited market.

Qantas, by agreement with the Australian Government, began offering cut-rate, one-way tickets to Sydney yesterday for stranded Australians.

Many English-language teachers are preparing for what may be drawn-out and expensive legal battles. Yesterday all 1,000 branches of Nova remained closed after the company filed for court protection from its creditors, and 450,000 language students encountered locked classroom doors.

“I feel betrayed,” said Richard Naish, 25, from Bath, whose Nova branch is in remote Tochigi prefecture. “The managers and teachers have all resigned and for the last few weeks I’ve had no boss at all.”

Mr Naish arrived for work yesterday to find a Japanese staff member in tears, removing her belongings and bolting the front door of the school.

Nobody has yet been told whether Nova, and the jobs of its 5,000 employees, will survive into the new year. Nozomu Sahashi, the company’s founder who was sacked by his board yesterday, has disappeared from public view. The company said yesterday that it was looking for other companies to mount a rescue bid.

The chain, which is known as the “McDonald’s of language schools” and is famous for recruiting aggressively at British university campuses, has not paid teachers for six weeks. The company has debts of almost 50 billion yen (£210 million), and has been losing students as its image has crumbled.

“There has been a sense that Nova would go under for a few months, but we were just kidding ourselves for ages that it was too big to fail,” said Joe Berry, from Yorkshire, who has worked for Nova for two years.

“But now we know this is it, and people are going to struggle. Some of these teachers have families, mortgages. It is such a shame it’s come to this.”

Nova’s problems stem from an ill-conceived expansion across Japan, backed by a massive advertising campaign. It was unable to recruit enough experienced teachers and many students defected to rival schools after complaining about the poor quality of Nova’s language courses.

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