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To combat certificate forgery in Higher Education, Libya joined the Unified Arab System for Blockchain-based Certificate Authentication. This initiative, spearheaded by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO), provides a reliable method for verifying academic qualifications. Experts advocate for similar systems across Africa to strengthen hiring practices and ensure credential credibility. They suggest leveraging blockchain technology and collaborating with international organizations for widespread implementation.

False qualifications damage the South African economy in several ways: they reduce productivity, increase expenditure, damage reputation, undermine confidence in the education system and reduce tax revenues. Governments and businesses need to tackle this problem, particularly by enforcing existing restrictions, improving the quality of education and training, setting up a centralized system for verifying qualifications and applying sanctions against those offering false certificates.

Ethical bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa face challenges in their capacity to perform their work due to a lack of ICT resources and academic training in ethics and regulatory affairs. €1.5 million (about US$1.62 million) has been granted to Benin, the Gambia, and Ivory Coast to install the Research for Health and Innovation Organiser software, a cloud-based platform that could make the work of such bodies more efficient while enabling them to improve ethical conduct and research integrity, review processes, build capacities in oversight and monitoring.

To prevent the leakage of question papers and other malpractices, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has tightened the security of the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination. Ten cases of breaches of WAEC rules were identified, including people linked to rogue websites, while the suspects in three cases were convicted and fined by the court. According to the head of Public Affairs of WAECA, schools accused of malpractice will be monitored and confidential material and examination papers will be stored.

13 staff members at the Ministry of Education have been dismissed in the Zambezi region after they were found guilty of claiming N$9 million in cash bonuses and additional payments. In order to improve payroll administration and identify any irregularity on the Ministry's payroll, a nationwide annual verification exercise is carried out.

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 Director of the now-closed Christian University of Rwanda and the former Prime minister received a three-year jail sentence and a fine of RWF892.2 million (US$907,000) after he was found guilty of issuing cheques that bounced and for failing to pay the teaching and administrative staff. The Rwanda Investigation Bureau also arrested the former vice-Chancellor of the University of Kibungo for alleged nepotism and mismanagement of the university’s finances.

A teacher was arrested after stealing examination papers during a sitting exam conducted by the West African Council. Six of his students reported to the police that the teacher mandated them to extract sheets from the Math and Science question booklets and sneaked them out of the testing center.

Cases of plagiarism at Rwandan universities have decreased. Students are required to submit their assignments and dissertations to the anti-plagiarism software, Turnitin before submitting them for grading. An acceptable work needs to be less than 15% or the student is disqualified and cannot graduate.