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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 Chalinze Modern Islamic Pre and Primary School examination centre has been suspended by the Government for examination malpractice. Five students had their examination numbers altered with no clear explanation from the invigilators. The minister demanded that the owner of the school sack all teachers involved in the cheating scandal, or risk permanent deregistration of the establishment. The National Examination Council of Tanzania corrected the candidates’ examination numbers and the results affected by this malpractice.

An investigation found nearly 170 residents who allegedly defrauded subsidies from the Continuing Education Development Plan, which involved over MOP1 million. Between 2016 and 2019, two staff members attracted residents to apply to the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau for the Continuing Education Development Plan and apply for subsidised courses. The centre reported untrue attendance records and colluded with instructors and students to forge attendance records while the students received cash rebates amounting to half of the subsidies paid or took other courses held by the centre for free.

Images of students wearing so-called "anti-cheating hats" during college exams have gone viral on social media in the Philippines. To ensure integrity and honesty in a fun way during exams, a professor at Bicol University College of Engineering asked the students to innovate headwear that would block their ability to see their peers' answer papers. The idea had been effective, and it was implemented for recent mid-term exams sat by hundreds of students at the College in October.

Education agencies across the globe are joining forces to fight the rise of commercial cheating services that target students worldwide. The newly formed Global Academic Integrity Network (GAIN) will share experiences and resources to help jurisdictions develop legislation, regulatory approaches and frameworks that penalise facilitating and advertising of cheating services. It was founded by Quality and Qualifications Ireland and Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and launched in Dublin last October.

Academic dishonesty including dissertation fraud is on rise universities in Africa. Only 24 African countries out of 54 have institutional repositories. This means that dissertations and other sources of information that can be plagiarised only exist in hard copies. According to a professor from Uganda, one way to eliminate contract writing is to establish a rigorous process throughout the dissertation writing and defence process. The president of the Southern African Students Union believes that paying lecturers decent salaries will lead to a decrease in the number of people engaging in ghost-writing for students.

Between 2019 and 2021, Trinity College had 445 cases of suspected cheating, 143 cases of plagiarism and another 154 cases of cheating. In 2022 there were 33 cases of suspected exam cheating and 138 cases where a student plagiarised work for their assignments. The University said the data did not include supplemental assignments that were in progress at the time, meaning the figures could still rise slightly.

According to an expert the housing crisis, cost-of-living pressures, language barriers, and lack of time and support from universities are prompting students in Australia to turn to contract cheating. His research found about 10% of students submit assignments written by someone else, and more than 95% of them are not caught. He also found those with English as a second or subsequent language are three times more likely to employ ghostwriters.