The United Kingdom has removed Nigeria and Ghana from the list of countries whose teachers can apply for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England, shutting the application route to teachers trained in the two West African countries.
Key Highlights
- The UK has removed Nigeria and Ghana from the list of countries whose teachers can apply for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England.
- The change took effect on September 9, 2026, according to the UK Department for Education.
- The decision was linked to concerns about the ability to verify teachers’ professional standing and employment history.
- The department said more than 70% of applications from Nigerian and Ghanaian-trained teachers contained employment references using public email services such as Gmail and Hotmail.
- Applicants are expected to provide verifiable employment references through official school-domain email addresses.
The UK Department for Education said the change took effect on September 9, 2026, after Nigeria and Ghana failed to meet one of the requirements for countries included in the overseas-trained teacher application route.
The department said countries on the list must have a national regulator capable of confirming the professional standing of teachers and providing authenticated references.
It also raised concerns over employment references submitted by applicants trained in Nigeria and Ghana.
According to the department, more than 70 percent of applications from teachers trained in the two countries contained work-history references linked to public email services, including Gmail and Hotmail, rather than official email addresses belonging to schools.
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The UK authorities said the use of such addresses makes it difficult for assessors to verify information supplied by applicants and increases the resources required to authenticate their employment histories.
“We must be confident that the information applicants provide is genuine,” the department said.
“This helps ensure that overseas teachers awarded qualified teacher status have the skills and experience needed to teach in schools in England.”
The QTS route allows eligible teachers trained outside the UK to obtain recognition to teach in schools in England.
Applicants are required to hold a valid passport, an undergraduate degree equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree and professional recognition as a qualified teacher in the country where they completed their training.
They must also have completed any mandatory induction required for full teacher registration in their country and provide evidence that they are qualified to teach children aged five to 16.
Applicants are further required to have at least nine months of teaching experience acquired after becoming qualified.
Their employment references must be verifiable through an email address linked to the relevant school’s official domain.
Depending on the country and teaching route, applicants may also be required to possess qualifications covering pupils aged 11 to 16 and demonstrate specialisation in subjects including mathematics, science, biology, chemistry, physics, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Russian or Spanish.
The UK Department for Education said about 90 percent of applications are assessed within 12 months.
India has also been removed from the eligible-country list because, according to the department, it does not have a national regulator capable of confirming teachers’ professional standing.
South Africa is currently the only African country remaining on the list of countries whose teachers can use the overseas-trained teacher route to apply for QTS in England.
The department, however, said teachers from countries no longer eligible for the QTS application service could explore other routes to securing teaching opportunities in England.
It noted that teachers in England are employed directly by individual schools rather than by the Department for Education.
