Since 2009, education and health have suffered cuts and multiple corruption scandals. Over the past decade, spending on education and culture has dropped from 32.9% of the central government budget to 19.9%. Students have no library, no computer classes, and requests for funding to replace asbestos seeping from a primary school’s roof in San Pedro Sula were declined by central and local authorities. ‘The teachers and parents raised $1,500 through fundraising events and collection tins at traffic lights to pay for repairs’ said a primary school teacher.

The recent steps taken by the UK government to end the use of essay mills by its students is a blow to thousands of Kenyan students and university graduates who rely on academic contract writing as their main source of income. An integrity expert tells in his blog that the participants think of their jobs as providing a service of value, not as helping people to cheat. They see themselves as working as academic writers but this practice is considered unethical and there are concerns it will have damaging effects on the quality of higher education.

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.

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) arrested a third-year medical student and another undergraduate for attempting to write the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) for candidates. According to the board’s Head of Media and Information, a medical student was caught at the Rainbow Digital Tech centre, one of the centres for the examination in Kano, trying to impersonate by trying to sit for the examination for a candidate.

Makerere University Council has approved the revised anti-sexual harassment policy aimed at eliminating the rampant sexual abuse at the institution. The University Vice-Chancellor said that the policy requires lecturers and all staff to declare any relationship they have with their students. He added: "If cases are reported to people and they sit on them, they will be liable to sanctions.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) implemented new regulations in order to prevent plagiarism and academic misconduct by students. They required every institution to establish a mechanism to enhance awareness about responsible conduct of research and academic activities, promotion of academic integrity and deterrence from plagiarism. The ministry of human resource development told a meeting of vice-chancellors that plagiarism software would be provided free to all institutions. However, similarity-detection is only possible if the original material is available online. And plagiarism is not just about text similarity, but also recycling of copied figures, tables, and photographs.

Student researchers found guilty of plagiarism may lose their registration and teachers could lose their jobs as the HRD ministry approved new regulations on plagiarism drafted by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in New Delhi. In March this year, the UGC had approved the regulations prescribing graded punishment for plagiarism. In case the similarities are between 40% and 60%, students will be banned from submitting a revised paper for one year. A student's registration for a programme will be cancelled if the similarities are above 60%

Reports that one of Japan's most prestigious medical universities tampered with female applicants' entrance exam scores have sparked an outcry on social media. Tokyo Medical University began altering results in 2011 to ensure under 30% of successful applicants would be women. The private university says it will investigate the discrimination reports. Users online took aim at the Japanese government over the scandal. Critics suggested the allegations were ironic given Prime Minister stated commitment to boost female participation in the workforce. The biggest daily newspaper in Japan, Yomiuri Shimbun, published the report examining student admission numbers on Thursday, generating complaints.