Teachers trained in Nigeria and Ghana are no longer eligible to apply for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England through the United Kingdom’s overseas-trained teacher application route.
The change took effect on September 9 and prevents teachers trained in the two West African countries from using the route to obtain QTS, a qualification recognised by many schools across England.
The UK Department for Education (DfE) said countries included in the application scheme must meet certain requirements, particularly in relation to verifying teachers’ qualifications, professional status and work experience.
One of the key requirements is that a country must have a national regulator capable of confirming a teacher’s professional standing and providing authenticated employment references.
According to the department, Nigeria and Ghana failed to meet the reference-verification requirement.
The DfE said more than 70 per cent of applications from teachers in Nigeria and Ghana contained work-history references sent from public email services such as Gmail and Hotmail instead of official school email addresses.
It explained that the practice creates additional difficulties for assessors trying to verify information supplied by applicants.
The department also said about 90 per cent of applications are assessed within 12 months.
India was similarly removed from the eligible list because it does not have a national regulator capable of confirming the professional standing of teachers.
With the latest changes, South Africa is the only African country remaining on the list of countries whose teachers can apply through the QTS route.
The UK government said the verification requirements are intended to ensure that information submitted by applicants is genuine and that teachers awarded QTS have the necessary skills and experience to teach in England.
Under the requirements, overseas-trained teachers seeking QTS must have a valid passport, an undergraduate degree equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree and professional recognition as a teacher in the country where they received their training.
Applicants must also have completed any mandatory induction requirements required for full teacher registration in their country of qualification.
They must demonstrate that they are qualified to teach children between the ages of five and 16 and have at least nine months of teaching experience acquired after qualifying as a teacher.
Employment references confirming their work history must also be provided, with the references coming from email addresses linked to the schools’ official domains.
Additional requirements may apply depending on the country where a teacher was trained. These can include qualifications to teach pupils aged 11 to 16 and specialisation in subjects such as mathematics, science, biology, chemistry, physics, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish.
However, the Department for Education noted that teachers in England are employed directly by individual schools rather than by the department.
As a result, teachers who are no longer eligible for the QTS application route may still explore alternative pathways into teaching in England.
The department advised affected teachers to consider other available routes for entering the teaching profession in England.
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