The United Kingdom has removed teachers trained in Nigeria and Ghana from the list of countries eligible to apply for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England, a legal requirement to teach in most schools in England.
The change took effect on September 9, 2026, according to the UK Department for Education (DfE).
QTS is the professional status required to teach in many English schools under the UK’s overseas-trained teacher recognition scheme. Teachers from eligible countries can apply through the DfE’s direct “Apply for QTS in England” route.
The DfE said countries must meet two key conditions to remain eligible: have a national regulator that can confirm a teacher’s professional standing, and provide authenticated employment references that can be independently verified.
According to the department, Nigeria and Ghana failed the second requirement.
“Our data shows that more than 70% of applications from teachers in Ghana and Nigeria include work history references that use public email addresses, such as Gmail or Hotmail, rather than a school’s official email domain,” the department said.
“This means assessors spend additional time and resources trying to verify information provided in applications,” it added.
The department stressed that applications must contain information that can be independently verified before QTS is awarded, and about 90 per cent of applications are assessed within 12 months.
India was simultaneously removed from the eligible list for a different reason, the absence of a national regulator capable of confirming teachers’ professional standing.
Following the review, South Africa now stands as the only African country remaining on the UK’s QTS-eligible list.
Recent data from the DfE shows the scale of applications from the two West African countries.
In the 2024-2025 academic year, Nigeria recorded 1,076 QTS applications, with 364 resulting in QTS and 599 declined. Ghana recorded 1,067 applications, with 196 resulting in QTS and 749 declined.
To qualify for QTS, applicants must possess a valid passport, a degree equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree, professional recognition in their country of training, full teaching registration, at least nine months of post-qualification teaching experience and references using official school domain email addresses.
The DfE said the removal does not mean individual teachers have been found to have submitted false information, but that verification of employment history has become difficult to authenticate at scale.
The department noted that individual schools may still consider alternative routes to employment, though QTS remains the preferred standard across most English schools.
The direct QTS route remains open to teachers trained in countries including Australia, Canada, the European Economic Area, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States.
