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.

The committee set up in March last year by the Education Minister to investigate racism and sexism in higher education has revealed that discrimination was pervasive despite all the good policies generated by the institutions. The committee believes that the racism persists in higher education mostly because of the weakness of the institutions' information dissemination: it recommended the creation of a transformation compact which will help to oversight the institutions to sensitize staff to the different needs of students from various cultural and economic backgrounds.

In their race to lure more postgraduate students, some universities are stopping just short of offering students a free semester to Jamaica where they can sip cocktails and finish up their research thesis. Postgraduate students are cash cows because they bring with them high government subsidies, more than for undergraduates.

A senior African academic has lost his job for the second time after an Australian university that appointed him in January belatedly discovered he had been forced to quit his South African post the previous November following charges of serial plagiarism.

The Department of Higher Education has warned students to be wary of "registered" private colleges which offer certificates, diplomas and degrees but do not have its stamp of approval. A department spokesman expressed concern about the current trend whereby institutions secured registration for one or two programmes, and then used this status as a cover to offer other unregistered courses.

A summer school entitled "From Principles to Practice: Higher education policy and research project management" was organized in Cape Town for masters and PhD students in the field of higher education studies. Practical examples and tips were given on how to navigate the field of competitive funding applications, the so-called "dirty" world of research.

Sexual harassment is rarely discussed in South African universities, but an investigation into a sex scandal that has rocked the University of the Witwatersrand has brought the subject under the spotlight. Wits University is investigating some academics after its student Newspaper accused an unnamed lecturer in the political studies department of sexual misconduct.

A forensic probe into corrupt practices at the government’s embattled multibillion-rand student funding vehicle is set to be launched, said Higher Education and Training Minister. The scheme gets a significant portion of the department’s budget. Students who did not meet the scheme’s funding thresholds were granted loans, putting countless deserving others at a disadvantage.

Government’s plan to draft in a policy to target qualification fraud is expected to reap positive results for South Africa, including ensuring that South African tertiary institutions are not robbed of the reverence many of them have earned for decades. One of the main benefits would be that CV verification will become standardised, ensuring accuracy and no room for deviation, in both the public and private sectors.

Forty-two bogus colleges and universities which offered fake and unaccredited programmes have been shut down, the Department of higher education and training said. They include three bogus universities which purported to be US-based and offered degrees in 15 days. They are Barkley University, Study for Career Success and the Fargo University.