In the media

Ghana is preparing to recruit 1,200 new university lecturers and 7,000 teachers to address staffing shortages, but the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission now requires all applicants to have their qualifications verified to prevent the use of fake degrees. This follows growing concerns about fraudulent and unaccredited certificates, which threaten education quality and credibility. UTAG stresses the need for stronger enforcement and legal action against academic fraud.

A technical review of Ghana’s computerized school placement system is underway as the Ministry of Education seeks to boost transparency, fairness, and efficiency in senior high school admissions. The review, led by a team of education managers, ICT experts, and student and parent representatives, aims to modernize the system and restore public confidence in one of the country’s key education gateways.

Ghanaian universities face new research paper retractions in top international journals, following nearly 1,000 removals last year. The articles, initially peer-reviewed and indexed by leading global institutions, are now marked as compromised, highlighting fake credentials, ethical lapses, and peer review issues, intensifying “publish or perish” pressures and calls for stronger higher education oversight.

The chairperson of Ghana’s Education Committee blamed corruption, nepotism, and poor oversight for a £40 million (approx. 53 million USD) debt in the foreign scholarship scheme. Irregular awards, costly short-term courses, and lack of accountability led to students being stranded abroad. Parliament now seeks reforms, including tighter supervision and a new scholarship authority board to ensure transparency.

The national Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) uncovered a widespread corruption within the Ghana Education Service (GES), involving fake schools, forged appointments, and ghost staff. The scheme included individuals using laptops with forged signatures to issue fake appointment letters. A joint investigation recovered GH₵106,000 (approx. $8,150) from convictions and saved GH₵34,249,737.60 (approx. $2.63M) by removing ghost names from the government payroll.

Ghana's Education Minister tasked the newly inaugurated Governing Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), to actively combat corruption. The Council was urged to expose financial irregularities like over-invoicing and under-invoicing. Emphasizing transparency, accountability, and integrity, the Minister called upon accountants to enforce professional standards and lead national discussions on financial misconduct.

A Corruption Risk Assessment report conducted in six districts within the education sector has recommended the full decentralization of the payroll management system to reduce corruption risks. The report suggests that decentralization would ensure that validation and enlistment in the Ghana Education Service (GES) begin and end at the district level. Findings indicate that newly recruited teachers have been paying bribes to fast-track their payroll processing or issuing duty letters with incorrect dates.

To preserve the integrity of education, the Minister of Education has announced the randomization of questions in the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). This measure aims to combat cheating, strengthen the integrity of the examination and ensure the credibility of the results. This measure follows the cancellation of the results of 3,500 students by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for misconduct.

Two teachers were arrested for allegedly engaging in examination malpractices during the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) at Dunkwa Secondary Technical Centre in Ghana's Central Region. The suspects, tutors at different schools, were caught attempting to smuggle answered exam questions into the hall. Police recovered two mobile phones and answered papers from them. Last year, 12 individuals were arrested at two examination centers for similar malpractices.

The Ghana Integrity Initiative has called for the removal of the protocol list system in secondary schools under the Computerized School Selection and Placement System. A new documentary entitled “School Placement for sale” shows parents, guardians, and officials in charge of placement allegedly making “deals” to secure places for students. Some parents paid GHS20,000 to get their children into placed schools while others paid GHS8,500 for preferred schools.