UK Bars Nigerian, Ghanaian Teachers From QTS Application Route in England

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, meaning teachers trained in the two West African countries can no longer use the route to obtain QTS, a professional status recognised by many schools in England.

The UK Department for Education said countries included in the application scheme must satisfy specific requirements to ensure that applicants’ qualifications, professional standing and teaching experience can be properly verified.

One of the requirements is for a country to have a national regulator capable of confirming a teacher’s professional status and providing authenticated references.

According to the department, Nigeria and Ghana failed to meet the reference-verification 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. This means assessors spend additional time and resources trying to verify information provided in applications,” the department said.

The UK department said about 90 per cent of applications are assessed within 12 months.

India was also removed from the list of eligible countries because, according to the department, it does not have a national regulator capable of confirming teachers’ professional standing.

With the changes, South Africa is now the only African country remaining on the list of countries whose teachers can use the QTS application route.

The department said the verification requirements were necessary to ensure that information supplied by applicants was genuine and that teachers awarded QTS possessed the skills and experience required to teach in England.

Requirements for QTS

Under the overseas-trained teacher route, applicants must have a valid passport and an undergraduate degree equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree.

They must also have professional recognition as a teacher in the country where they trained and have completed any mandatory induction requirements required for full teacher registration in that country.

Applicants are required to demonstrate that they are qualified to teach children aged between five and 16 and have at least nine months of teaching experience gained after qualifying as a teacher.

They must also provide employment references verifying their work history, with the email address linked to the school’s official domain.

Depending on the country where the teacher was trained, additional requirements may include qualifications to teach pupils aged between 11 and 16 and a specialisation in subjects including 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 by individual schools rather than directly by the department.

It therefore said teachers who are no longer eligible to use the QTS application service could explore alternative routes into teaching in England.

The latest change means teachers trained in Nigeria and Ghana will have to consider those alternative routes if they wish to pursue teaching careers in England.