Over 500 candidates had to re-sit for their Primary School Leaving Examinations after the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA) discovered that some schools had leaked the examinations. According to the NECTA executive secretary, the leaked examinations were distributed through WhatsApp groups and primary schools. This was done in a well-orchestrated collaboration involving owners of the schools, supervisors, and authorities responsible for storing the exam papers at Nyanduga Primary School, Rorya.

Following a directive in late-2016 of the President of the 5th-Phase Government of Tanzania, verification (by a Special Presidential Task Force) of the academic credentials of reportedly 400 035 civil servants who draw emoluments from Government coffers unearthed much rot! The probe revealed that 9,932 public service employees got where they are today on the back of educational certificates which were either forged outright, borrowed, bought or stolen.

The Public Service Recruitment Secretariat has collected a total of 1,008 fake academic certificates from public service job seekers. The Deputy Secretary of the Quality and Control Department said the use of forged certificates is a national crisis since the majority of job seekers use them. "The certificates (1,008 fake academic certificates) were collected within the six years of the Secretariat," he said and commended the government's move to crack down on the rampant use of fake certificates in public service. The people behind the fake certificates were taken on hold and their certificates blacklisted in the public service.

The Inspector General of Police (IGP) has issued a stern warning to members of public against processing and use of fake academic transcripts or identification. Closing the initial training for Police and Immigration trainees at Tanzania Police College here on Friday, the Inspector said the untoward conduct is taking shape in some sections of the society, within and outside education institutions and it must be stopped.

Universities in two East African countries, Kenya and Tanzania, have come under fire for prolifically awarding honorary degrees – in some cases allegedly for money and in others in return for influence.

People in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have been found buying fake degrees of all sorts from diploma mills and other bogus universities. Those universities have no physical existence and operate only through websites. Most diploma mills are operating from Britain or United States where academic standards are presumed to be very high. Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigations compiled a list of over 10,000 persons who obtained fake degrees from diploma mills in USA. A significant number of them are from South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. Currently, there are about 80 notorious diploma mills that operate from the United States and the UK.