Teachers trained in Nigeria and Ghana are no longer eligible to use England’s direct overseas application service for Qualified Teacher Status, following new eligibility rules introduced by the UK Department for Education.
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The change took effect on September 9, 2026, and also affects teachers trained in India. The Department for Education said it revised the conditions countries must satisfy before their teachers can use the “Apply for QTS in England” professional recognition service.
Under the revised requirements, a country must have a national regulator capable of confirming a teacher’s professional standing and must also be able to provide employment references that meet the department’s verification standards.
The department said Nigeria and Ghana fell short of the reference-verification requirement, citing the high proportion of applications in which employment references were submitted using public email services rather than official school domains.
“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 for Education said.
The department said the tighter verification requirements were necessary because it must be satisfied that information submitted by applicants is genuine and that overseas-trained teachers awarded QTS possess the skills and experience required to teach in schools in England.
India was also removed from the list, with the department stating that the country does not have a national regulator capable of confirming teachers’ professional standing.
Qualified Teacher Status is a professional teaching status in England. Although having QTS can improve a teacher’s employment prospects, the Department for Education does not itself provide teaching jobs or visas, as teachers are recruited by individual schools.
Under the current rules, teachers with recognised qualifications from Australia, Canada, the European Economic Area, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey, New Zealand, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United States can use the direct QTS application service, provided they satisfy the other applicable requirements.
Teachers trained in Jamaica, Singapore and South Africa may also apply where they are working in a valid teaching role in England and meet the other requirements. Those who are not already working in a qualifying role may still be eligible where they satisfy additional conditions, including requirements relating to subject specialisation and teaching pupils aged between 11 and 16. South Africa is therefore the only African country currently included in the service’s eligible-country framework.
Applicants using the QTS service are generally required to hold a valid passport, possess an undergraduate degree equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree and be professionally recognised as teachers in the country where they completed their teacher training.
They must also have completed any mandatory induction required for full registration, be qualified to teach children within the required age range and have at least nine months of teaching experience acquired after qualifying as teachers.
Employment references must verify an applicant’s work history and come from an email address using the school’s official domain, such as an institutional school email address rather than a public Gmail or Hotmail account.
Depending on the country of training, applicants may also be required to demonstrate qualifications to teach pupils aged between 11 and 16 and possess a specialism in subjects such as mathematics, science, biology, chemistry, physics or specified foreign languages.
The removal of Nigeria from the direct application list does not, however, amount to a blanket ban on Nigerian-trained teachers working in England or obtaining QTS.
The Department for Education says overseas-trained teachers who cannot use the direct professional recognition service may explore other routes, including assessment-only QTS, teacher training in England and international qualified teacher status, depending on their qualifications and circumstances.
Qualified teachers from outside the United Kingdom may also, subject to applicable conditions, teach in England for up to four years without QTS under what the government describes as the “4-year rule”. The exemption does not apply to every type of educational institution, and teachers may subsequently require QTS to continue working in many state schools.
Official data published by the Department for Education shows that Nigerian and Ghanaian teachers had been among the largest groups using the overseas QTS service. During the 2024/2025 academic year, the service recorded 1,076 applications from Nigeria and 1,067 from Ghana.
The September 9 change therefore closes the direct QTS application route previously available to teachers trained in Nigeria and Ghana, while leaving alternative pathways into teaching in England open to those who satisfy their respective requirements.
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