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Following the implementation of the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) any new Higher Education institution in Ghana that advertises or runs a programme for which it has no accreditation, penalties will include paying a fine of GHS240,000 (US$41,400). Alternatively, the vice-chancellor or rector of the institution concerned will be imprisoned for up to 20 years, but both penalties can be applied.

According to the Head of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), essay mills have become “public health and safety issue”, affecting all of society. As a result of students cheating in their degrees, there will be people entering into professions who are not qualified to carry out the work that is required. This practice is spreading now to the sixth-formers going to essay mills to get through their coursework at school.

Nigerian universities have been accused of under-reporting the number of students and hiring professors already employed in other universities. They wanted to convince the National Universities Commission (NUC) that they have sufficient staff to meet master/student ratio requirements and maintain their program accreditation. Another issue raised in the NUC review process is the practice of sending lecturers to monitor activities in their own areas of study. This has led the lecturers to compromise on standards to favour their colleagues who may also then be sent to accredit programmes in their schools.

The Institute of Business Economics’ rector and deputy are charged with fraud, forging of documents and their sale, commercial bribery, and mediation. One of the Institute applicants said that the admissions office offered her to pay 450 thousand rubles ($7,054) for three years of study. The fact that the university was deprived of its license two years earlier did not prevent the rector from concluding contracts with candidates for paid higher education.

According to a report published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the International Quality Group, corruption in higher education vary between countries but it highlights unethical, inappropriate, and illegal practices. Some examples include university leaders and professors with fake or undeserved doctoral degrees impacting on the governance of some Russian universities, ‘ghost advising’ or absenteeism by senior academics, delegating their responsibilities for teaching or supervision to junior colleagues or research students, is widespread in Kosovo, or students and teachers sexually harassing, threatening or harming academic teaching staff in Uganda.