In the media

A survey of 1,054 students in the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia found that 92% of students had some knowledge of academic integrity issues, from how to avoid plagiarism, to the consequences of cheating, to where to get help with references. The majority had heard about these issues from a member of the academic staff, showing a promising trend towards open communication within institutions about academic integrity. There were differences between male and female respondents, with male students being more aware of the workshops offered by their university while female students were more familiar with the concept of avoiding plagiarism. The survey also highlights the importance of academic integrity and provides useful information for educators.

The New York City Department of Education has blocked access to ChatGPT on its networks and devices over fears that the AI tool will harm students’ education. Many teachers say software like ChatGPT essentially makes it impossible to test students’ ability to write essays at home. Although tools to detect AI-generated writing already exist, it’s unclear how accurate they will be, or if students can outwit them with simple alterations to AI-generated text.

Six Iranian and Azerbaijani nationals have been arrested for stealing and selling questions and answers from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) that foreign students take for admission to universities in the United States and Turkey. The suspects allegedly charged the “buyers” between $2,000 and $3,000 for the questions provided in their network called “quarantine houses”. While searching the addresses where the suspects were arrested, Turkish police found SAT admission papers, official test question books and a host of digital evidence.

Cameroon’s Minister of Higher Education revealed that the private American University in Central Africa, recruiting students for its programmes is a clandestine university. In 2020, the Minister ordered the African Regional Training Centre for Labour Administration, the Pan African Institute for Development and the Bamenda University Institute of Science and Technology to desist from awarding Bachelor’s degrees and suspend all Master's and Doctorate programmes for non-compliance with the conditions of the accreditation granted to them.

In 2018 the Higher Education, Science and Innovation Department had successfully prosecuted 40 fake institutes. However, by the end of 2021, the number of institutions offering fake bachelor’s and doctoral degrees has increased. During an awareness campaign on bogus colleges, officials will address the dissemination of information related to these higher education organisations.

Poverty, the rising rate of early dropouts, ghost schools and teachers, low pass rates in the JEST test for primary school teachers are just some of the factors at the heart of the education crisis in Sindh. The biometric mechanism put in place by the Sindh government proved to be counterproductive and has failed to compel ghost teachers to attend school: 6.5 million children are currently out of school.

To prevent the forging of information, a new digital platform will allow learners from primary to university levels to have an identification number. Schools will update data about their learners, teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure and facilities including physical education and sports through their online EMIS user accounts. The new system is aimed to eliminate ghost workers and improve transparency and accountability across the country.

An investigation is being conducted by The Teachers' Service Commission (TSC) after complaints that teachers' committees at the district level had promoted teachers that did not meet the criteria under the influence of bribes. A government official called on the TSC to establish a digital system for keeping teachers' information and offer a Customer Service Center for teachers whenever they encounter challenges in implementing their duties.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has launched a new biometric enrolment and validation of teachers system intended to address staff shortages and prevent the use of fake degrees. Pre-loaded data from the TSC payroll system will be validated when the teachers provide physical documents such as an enrolment certificate, national identity card, letter of first and last appointment together with their academic and professional certificates. This pilot registration took off in 143 schools in seven counties.

The Taiwanese startup, TuringChain offers educational institutions, students, and enterprises a new way of certification and authentication with the blockchain-powered solution TuringCerts. According to its CEO, a quarter of all data on LinkedIn is fake or exaggerated, while 27% of degrees can be bought online. TuringCerts’ creates an anti-counterfeit e-portfolio for students, and educational institutions receive a digital cache, which they can use to issue certificates.TuringCerts uses Smart Identification and protects digital certificates from manipulation.