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Over 5,000 students had their results withdrawn by Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) after massive leaks. A headmaster and a teacher at Thokozani school had been arrested after they gained access to the examination papers and sold them to Zvishavane residents. However, according to a legislator, ZIMSEC used the school as a scapegoat for the examination board’s investigations to be concluded hastily.

Transparency International Zimbabwe reports that many students are put under pressure to have sex for good grades, but when they bravely report this, justice is often hard to achieve. Sextortion in which sex, rather than money, is the currency of the bribe is not yet legally recognized as a form of corruption most universities in Zimbabwe do not have a clear policy for identifying and addressing such cases. There is no legal framework that recognizes sextortion as a form of corruption, and the police also have a limited understanding of it.

A 2017 Female Students Network Trust in Zimbabwe study indicated that male employees on campuses had sexually harassed 74% of female students in higher education across the country. According to a United Nations health education adviser, many institutions of higher learning do not have policies or programmes in place to deal with sexual harassment and, even when policies do exist, students may still be too afraid to report instances of harassment by lecturers.

The university students in Zimbabwe are tired by “fraudulent stances’’ taken by the government and the empty promises of receiving their US$100 allowances for living. According to the secretary general of the Zimbabwe National Students Union, the former minister of higher and tertiary education, and his deputy are subjects of a forensic investigation into the possible looting of funds meant for tertiary education students.

Zimbabwean police arrested the Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister and his deputy on Wednesday for allegedly misappropriating around US$450,000 from a manpower development fund that finances students, among other activities. The politicians were questioned and released. Days before his arrest the minister – a former politics professor at the University of Zimbabwe and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, which accused him of embezzling research funds – issued a statement denying any wrongdoing.

Zimbabwe’s Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister is facing a probe over the alleged abuse of approximately US$450,000 meant for students in a development that has seen students calling for him to pay back the money and resign. According to a charge sheet prepared by the anti-graft commission, the minister is alleged to have used part of the money to fund cronies in his constituency as part of a bid to regain his seat in the 2018 general elections. His deputy, is alleged to have formed a company that benefitted from the student funds as universities were directed to buy equipment from his firm.

The country's Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating the current Higher Education Minister after a number of graft accusations, and the Zimbabwe National Students Union, ZINASU, said he should resign or be fired by the President on the grounds that he was unfit to hold the portfolio.