Search Page

Five professors at Hassan I University in Settat, Morocco, are under investigation after conversations on social media were leaked in which they were allegedly discussing the ‘sextortion’ of female students for extra credits. The academic community called for a Business Ethics module in the university staff training programmes that would stop promoting such abuses.

According to a survey conducted by Transparency International Madagascar, 84% of students are victims of sexual corruption. The most common modus operandi is first to lure a student and then offer a good grade in exchange for a sexual favour. The Confederation of Teachers' Unions has denounced the existence of a protection network for guilty teachers within the Ministry of Higher Education.

The Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU) protested the dismissal of Maasai Mara University chief finance officer, who was among the staff who blew the whistle on the misappropriation of KES190 million (US$1.8 million). KUSU also called for the dissolution of the entire Maasai Mara University Council by the Ministry of Education and the removal of the acting vice-chancellor for covering up the case.

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.

Four former senior officials from the Eastern Cape Department of Education and a company director have been arrested on corruption charges involving the purchase of textbooks for students. The senior education official bypassed the department's supply chain process by obtaining a Supplementary Resource Material (SRM) agreement that was not required. Reports allege that the official received a bribe in the form of two laptops and a mobile phone from the company that received the R59 million for the SRM material.

Reports show that criminals exploit cash payments made by West African students to pay tuition and other service fees at United Kingdom universities. Private universities and cross-border foreign campuses in Africa are used as an investment and to integrate the proceeds of crime into the legitimate economy. When more than the tuition fee is paid, they request the university to refund the overpayment to a third party’s account such as the bank account of a drug supplier or a bribed official.

A recent study warns policy-makers in developing countries about the poor quality of research evaluation. The findings show the infiltration of journals suspected of predatory practices into the citation database Scopus. 324 journals that appear both in Beall’s lists and on Scopus and 164,000 articles published from 2015-17 were identified. As a result, the Scopus Content Selection and Advisory Board removed underperforming journals.

A former Executive secretary of the Lagos State Scholarship Board has been charged with 8 counts of criminal conversion of N127 million belonging to the scholarship board. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s report revealed that the funds meant for students’ scholarship payments, staff welfare and office renovation had been used for personal purposes.

A recent report highlights risks of investment of funds into the UK education sector by African elites, including “politically exposed persons”, some of whom have been convicted of corruption or whose assets have been seized by the UK. According to the report, the gap between what west African PEPs pay for a UK education and what they can legitimately afford is a significant red flag. Relatively lax anti-money laundering rules in the British education sector mean that school administrators and admissions staff are potentially complicit in illegal flows of money.

A significant number of faculty members are being accused of securing their academic promotions through predatory publications and other sub-standard means. To combat this unethical practice, the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MoSHE) issued a new Harmonised Standard for Academic Staff Promotion in Public Universities in October 2020. The MoSHE says the safest way to avoid predatory publications is for academics to submit manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals indexed by databases such as Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed.