The government of the United Kingdom (UK) has banned teachers trained in Nigeria and Ghana from applying for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England and the UK.
The new order which took effect from September 9, 2026, is due to the fact that UK education authorities are unable to “verify” claims of teachers coming from Nigeria and Ghana.
The UK Department for Education said countries included in the QTS scheme must meet specific requirements to ensure that applicants’ qualifications, professional standing and teaching experience can be properly verified.
A part of the requirements, a country must have a national regulator capable of confirming a teacher’s professional status and providing authenticated references.
According to the department, Nigeria and Ghana did not meet the reference-verification requirement.
Though Nigeria has the Teachers Registration Council (TRCN), an agency created by the Federal Government of Nigeria which is saddled with the responsibility of “registration,” “regulation,” and “registration” of teachers in Nigeria, it is unclear why Nigerian teachers have been disqualified.
A key part of the new UK policy states that, “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 verification process was necessary to ensure that information provided by applicants was genuine and that teachers awarded QTS possessed the required skills and experience to teach in England
To apply for QTS, overseas-trained teachers 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 trained
Applicants must also have completed any mandatory induction requirements needed for full teacher registration in their country of qualification.
They 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.
Applicants must also provide employment references that verify their work history and use an email address linked to the school’s official domain.
Depending on the country where a teacher trained, additional requirements may include qualifications to teach pupils aged between 11 and 16 and a specialism in subjects such as mathematics, science, biology, chemistry, physics, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Russian or Spanish
In England, teachers are employed by individual schools rather than the Department for Education, schools may consider alternative routes into teaching.
The department said teachers who are no longer eligible to use the QTS application service can explore other routes into teaching in England.
India is also affected by the latest policy for not having a national regulator capable of confirming teachers’ professional standing.
In Africa, only South Africa is the only African country remaining on the list of countries whose teachers can use the QTS application route.