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, which took effect on September 9, means teachers from the two West African countries can no longer use the route to obtain QTS, a qualification recognised by many schools in England.
The UK Department for Education (DfE) said countries included in the scheme must meet specific requirements to ensure that applicants’ qualifications, professional standing and teaching experience can be properly verified.
One of the requirements is that 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 failed to meet the reference-verification requirement.
The DfE said more than 70 per cent of applications from teachers in Ghana and Nigeria included work-history references using public email addresses, such as Gmail or Hotmail, instead of official school email domains.
It said this resulted in assessors spending additional time and resources verifying information provided by applicants.
“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 department added that about 90 per cent of applications are assessed within 12 months.
India was also removed from the list of eligible countries because it does not have a national regulator capable of confirming teachers’ professional standing.
South Africa is now the only African country remaining on the list of countries whose teachers can use the QTS application route.
The DfE 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.
Under the QTS route, 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 required for full teacher registration in their country of qualification.
They are required to demonstrate that they are qualified to teach children aged five to 16 and have at least nine months of teaching experience gained after qualifying as a teacher.
Applicants must also provide employment references verifying 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 11 to 16 and a specialism in subjects including mathematics, science, biology, chemistry, physics, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Russian or Spanish.
However, the DfE noted that teachers in England are employed by individual schools rather than the department, meaning 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 to qualify to teach in England.
 in England through the United King){kind=link}