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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.

The General Secretary of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) highlighted the significance of the ongoing investigation into a fake diploma scandal and its implications for corruption within senior bureaucratic and political circles. He pledges the CTP's commitment to monitoring the process and work towards enhancing the effectiveness of regulatory bodies like the Higher Education Planning, Evaluation, Accreditation and Coordination Council YÖDAK to improve governance and accountability in higher education institutions.

A committee in Nigeria, led by the Minister of Education, is investigating degree racketeering and degree mills. Affiliated institutions in several countries are under scrutiny. The committee seeks to address breaches in the accreditation process for both local and foreign universities, following revelations of fraudulent practices highlighted in an investigative report. Experts suggest improving accreditation processes and public awareness to combat the issue.

The Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture has revoked 31 private higher education licences after finding that the institutions did not meet the required standards in terms of facilities and student numbers, that teaching was poor, and that there had been allegations of bogus courses and fraudulent issuing of diplomas. The Ministry will help students from the institutions concerned to transfer to accredited institutions. Teachers who are found not to have been involved in the fraudulent schemes will receive the same assistance, otherwise, they will be blacklisted.

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.

The new book “Corrupted: A study of chronic dysfunction in South African universities” is an account of chronic corruption rooted in a political economy framework combined with a lack of governance and management capacity and academic integrity. These universities are all located in resource-poor areas where the university is the main source of funding and an opportunity for corruption, ranging from contracts (such as building projects) to services (such as transport), to student accommodation and the sale of fake certificates.

Following two scandals at National Taiwan University involving two politicians, the president of the Union of Private School Educators called on the Ministry of Education to ensure that university dissertation plagiarism is prevented. Academics are unlikely to blow the whistle on misconduct by politicians studying for degrees. Instead of being compromised by favours from politicians, thesis advisers should instead be gatekeepers of academic ethics.

A new report by the Education Service Commission (ESC) has revealed that since 2003, 1,000 ghost teachers have been on the government payroll. Over 600 ‘ghost teachers’ from various secondary schools and tertiary institutions accessed the payroll with fake appointment letters signed by officials, while 400 teachers lacked practising licences. The report says that in few schools, appointed teachers were not teaching but sub-contracted private teachers to perform their duties.

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.