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Two teachers from Dlumana High School in Manyeleti, Mpumalanga, and Tuscany Glen High School in Cape Town were dismissed for their involvement in a matric exam cheating scandal. The Mpumalanga teacher posted answers to a life sciences paper on WhatsApp during the 2022 exams, while the Cape Town teacher forwarded exam questions to students via WhatsApp. This incident is part of a broader cheating scandal involving 935 pupils.

The Quality Council for General and Further Education and Training (Umalusi) is concerned about the allegations of cheating involving candidates and teachers. According to the reports, the candidates in question paid teachers to have access to the answers posted on a WhatsApp group during toilet breaks while the examinations were in session. While an investigation is conducted by the Department of Basic Education, the CEO of Umalusi reassured the public that rigorous and robust quality assurance mechanisms will be used to safeguard the integrity and credibility of the National Senior Certificate.

The Inter-University Council for East Africa and member states from the East African Community need to address the issue of poor quality of education in private universities operating without minimum requirements. Members of the East African Legislative Assembly are concerned about those “quack universities” where students are tricked into enrolling but later fail to graduate after the universities have closed. This is the case of Kampala University, which opened a branch in Juba but closed without informing students, leaving them stranded.

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.

The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is the first South African tertiary institution to use blockchain technology as an additional security measure to protect its certificates against alteration or falsification. The Director of Central Academic Administration calls on all tertiary institutions to collectively improve the integrity of their qualifications and enable companies to verify their qualifications easily and at no cost, which will help to prevent certificate fraud and curb counterfeiting.

In 2018 the Higher Education, Science and Innovation Department had successfully prosecuted 40 fake institutes. However, by the end of 2021, the number of institutions offering fake bachelor’s and doctoral degrees has increased. During an awareness campaign on bogus colleges, officials will address the dissemination of information related to these higher education organisations.

Stellenbosch University experienced an unusual increase in academic misconduct amongst students due to the move to online assessments during the COVID crisis. In 2020, 183 students were charged with collusion, where one or more students assisted each other during online assessments, compared to only 2 students in 2019.

2,400 students from the colleges of agriculture, environmental and human sciences and engineering have had their marks withheld by UNISA due to concerns over cheating. Over 750 warning letter have been issued and other 200 cases were still outstanding. The consequences of cheating can results in disqualification from future tests or examinations, and exclusions or expulsions from the university.

A professor at the University of South Africa (UNISA) gave a student plagiarised work of his research assistant who left UNISA. He helped him to fraudulently gain a master’s degree and eventually a Ph.D. He was given a written warning by UNISA valid 12 months.

Lecherous lecturers who demand sex in return for good marks could be named and shamed if students attending the HEAids National Youth Conference Durban conference. The UN representative said that power relations at campuses proved to be a “very big issue”, particularly the role of lecturers and sex for marks. The students attending one of the sessions came up with an “interesting concept” - to identify the offending lecturers on an application “grey list” so that their names would be known.