Search Page

The Chadian Anti-Corruption Organisation (OTAC) has launched an awareness-raising campaign to educate pupils and teachers about the importance of ethics and the fight against corruption in schools. Highlighting the importance of combating the consequences of corruption, including its influence on grades and harmful practices such as sexual favours, OTAC's national coordinator stressed the need to consider the gender dimension, encouraging the empowerment of girls and the promotion of equal opportunities.

According to reports by the Central Office for Combating Illicit Enrichment (OCLEI) and the Office of the Auditor General (BVG), the education sector in Mali is facing revelations of financial malpractice. Average annual state subsidies to public schools amount to 49.600 billion CFA francs, but financial irregularities of more than 19.744 billion CFA francs have been revealed. Questionable practices, such as awarding subsidies to non-compliant establishments, issuing fake decrees and making irregular payments, have been exposed.

The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) and the Drug Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) recently united to combat corruption and drug abuse in educational institutions. They signed a pact titled "Eliminate Corruption and Illicit Drugs in Schools and Higher Learning Institutions" in Dodoma. The Memorandum focuses on exchanging information to prevent these vices and aims to discourage youth involvement in corruption and drug abuse. The PCCB has established 7,000 anti-corruption clubs across schools and higher learning institutions in the country.

Corrupt offences committed in the education sector in Madagascar involve professional abuse, abuse of influence, unlawful gifts, favoritism, and conflicts of interest. Students bribe their teachers to obtain better grades or admission to a higher class. The conference on ‘Strengthening integrity and fighting corruption in higher education’ organized by the Graduate School for Economic and Social Development, and the Independent Anti-Corruption Bureau is a call for students, directors, and teachers to be made aware and educated about the fight against corruption.

A survey of 2,000 university students and 500 employees conducted by the Center for the Development of Youth Activism (CROA), found every fourth student has had an encounter with corruption - such as paying for a better grade. In addition to bribes and coerced textbook purchases, some students were pressured to join political parties and extorted for sexual favours. CROA is not only passing on the complaints to universities for a follow-up investigation, but is also planning anti-corruption training for professors, staff, and students. And it is working to include conflict of interest in universities’ codes of ethics.

The Anti-Corruption Commission has charged five members and an executive director of the North South University (NSU) board of governors with abuse of power, increasing their allowances to ten times the approved rate, and buying luxury cars at the expense of students. For more than a decade, NSU has offered several Bachelor of Business Administration programmes without University Grants Commission approval. According to an investigator, NSU was allowed to enrol 50 students in approved BBA programmes, but it enrolled about 2,700 students in one semester.

Chung Chou University of Science and Technology (CCUT) has been forcing students from Uganda to work in factories for long hours to pay off debts they incurred since they did not receive the promised scholarships. The university had been under observation for quality issues since 2015 so this new element persuaded the advisory commission on private schools to ask the Ministry of Education for tougher sanctions against CCUT which is no longer allowed to recruit any new students, whether foreign or domestic.

To identify students accurately and easily detect any potential impersonator, an expert from Cairo’s National Research Centre called on African universities to introduce biometric systems based on fingerprints and to install scanning systems at entrance gates, examination halls and lecture rooms. An Egyptian soccer player has been recently impersonated during the mid-year exam at a private higher education institution in Shabraman.

Six vice-chancellors from Cambridge, Exeter and UCL have signed up to a pledge which commits universities to stop using legally binding non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) against students and staff who report sexual harassment. The Higher Education Minister stated that universities should end the use of NDAs which “buy victims’ silence” in sexual misconduct cases.

Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC) had discovered fake institutions in Benin awarding PhD degrees after students completed bogus studies in less than one year. According to NUC, academic projects and theses were sold for about NGN3,000 (about US$7.32) per copy, and sexual harassment was prevalent. Many of these fraudulent institutions are run by Nigerian proprietors who target students from Nigeria, where public universities struggle to accommodate a high number of qualified students seeking admission.