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The National Audit Office (NAO) has revealed concerns about organized crime exploiting lax oversight in England's unregulated colleges, potentially profiting from student loan fraud amounting to £60 million. The report highlights instances of fraud and abuse at private higher education providers offering courses in collaboration with mainstream universities. Some providers allegedly enroll students with little interest in completing courses to access government-backed maintenance loans, leading to substantial financial gains through tuition fees and franchising fees.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) has established strategic command centers across the nation to address various issues plaguing schools. These include actions like dismissing students over unpaid fees, offering paid extra lessons, discriminatory enrollment practices, corporal punishment, imposing unapproved fees, and other misconduct. The MoPSE's communications and advocacy director urged stakeholders to utilize designated contacts to report any malpractices. The goal is to ensure that every school-going child receives a quality, fair, and comprehensive primary, and secondary education.

Several reports revealed that a Jalandhar-based study abroad company filed around 700 fraudulent student visa applications between 2018 and 2022. After completing their courses and fulfilling work requirements, the students applied for permanent residency in Canada and submitted supporting documents. The Canadian Border Security Agency examined the documents based on which the visas were granted to the students and discovered that the letters of admission were false. The Government is investigating reports of fraudulent admission letters.

The Ghana Integrity Initiative has called for the removal of the protocol list system in secondary schools under the Computerized School Selection and Placement System. A new documentary entitled “School Placement for sale” shows parents, guardians, and officials in charge of placement allegedly making “deals” to secure places for students. Some parents paid GHS20,000 to get their children into placed schools while others paid GHS8,500 for preferred schools.

The central figure in the scam in which wealthy parents paid huge sums to cheat on standardised tests has been sentenced to three and a half years in Federal prison. The mastermind of the sprawling college admissions scam known as Operation Varsity Blues pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering, and conspiracy

Three Georgia women and an Alabama man pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the US Department of Education’s Federal financial aid programs worth millions of dollars. According to the Justice Department, they admitted enrolling people who were not eligible to attend college and completing financial aid applications using fake students’ names; they also did fake students’ homework and exams and manipulated grade requirements to continue qualifying for Federal financial aid.

The Department of Justice reports that two education officials have been sentenced to jail after pleading guilty to fraudulently enrolling people in virtual schools and then claiming money from public funds on their behalf. The districts received payments from the Alabama Education Trust Fund as if the students were attending public schools while the defendants misappropriated state money through direct cash payments and payments to third-party contractors owned by various co-conspirators.

The Director of the Future Gate Agency was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined 7 million dinars (about $50,000) after 75 Algerian students who wanted to enrol in foreign universities, including in Ukraine, Turkey, and Russia, fell victim to fraud. Although they paid the Agency large sums of money, the accommodation conditions were wretched, and their university applications forged. Two of their assistants and three influencers, prosecuted in the same case, were given one year in prison and fined 100,000 dinars (about $700) each.

Six Iranian and Azerbaijani nationals have been arrested for stealing and selling questions and answers from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) that foreign students take for admission to universities in the United States and Turkey. The suspects allegedly charged the “buyers” between $2,000 and $3,000 for the questions provided in their network called “quarantine houses”. While searching the addresses where the suspects were arrested, Turkish police found SAT admission papers, official test question books and a host of digital evidence.

The Gombe State High Court sentenced a retired secondary school principal to two years imprisonment for fraud and running of illegal institutions. Between 2009 and 2015, he defrauded candidates of over N3.8 million in the guise of offering them admission into his three illegal higher institutions.