Academic dishonesty including dissertation fraud is on rise universities in Africa. Only 24 African countries out of 54 have institutional repositories. This means that dissertations and other sources of information that can be plagiarised only exist in hard copies. According to a professor from Uganda, one way to eliminate contract writing is to establish a rigorous process throughout the dissertation writing and defence process. The president of the Southern African Students Union believes that paying lecturers decent salaries will lead to a decrease in the number of people engaging in ghost-writing for students.

If the academic profession does not maintain adequate income levels, academic performance throughout the system inevitably suffers. Academics must receive sufficient remuneration to live an appropriate middle-class lifestyle. Through an Egyptian example of university professors demanding sums of money to their students, this article deals with the inevitable consequences of inadequate academic salaries.