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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.

"Degree mills" are impeding the efforts to assure quality in higher education—a significant national issue for some time and now an international concern. In response, the US-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) recently joined with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to bring together an informal group of higher education and quality assurance/accreditation leaders to focus on degree mills. Issues on the traits and the perils of degree mills, and on the national and international policies to curb that phenomenon will be discussed.

In 2002, the Liberian embassy's deputy chief of mission began his fraudulent transactions with American owners of St Regis diploma mill. They agreed to sell Liberian university accreditation to "St Regis University" for $2,250. They then decide to create two other diploma mills: Robertstown and James Monroe. By the end of 2003, Liberian officials under their sway included senior diplomats in at least two embassies, a minister of justice, a foreign minister, two successive directors of Liberia's National Commission for Higher Education, and a number of other diplomats and government officials, including several at the Ministry of Education. The United States Secret Service finally unveiled their embezzlement.

From 1995 to 2001, Nigerian degree mills produced annually about 15 percent of total university graduates in the country. In the past 9 years, a flurry of activity has been directed at eradicating the degree mills. In 1999, the National Council on Education (NUC) directed the closure of all local and foreign satellite campuses. It also partnered with the Department of State Services (Nigeria's secret service) in locating, arresting, and prosecuting operators of unapproved universities and satellite campuses. Finally, it directed approved universities to make full disclosure of their programs, which have been listed in the Directory of Approved Programmes in the Nigerian University System.

Fake degrees from every university in Wales are being sold on the internet for less than £40 a go, a Wales on Sunday investigation has found. The website, called the Fake Certificate Factory, offers degrees from all of Wales' top universities – including Cardiff, Swansea, Glamorgan, Aberystwyth and Bangor. Wales on Sunday was able to buy a degree in English literature bearing the crest of Cardiff University for just £39.95, which we received the next day by post. And for an extra £49.95 we were offered a fake transcript, which provides a detailed breakdown of exam marks supposedly achieved by a student in their final university exams.

The Swedish labor minister listed on his resume on the government's website an M.B.A. taken at Fairfax University, which several US states listed as a so-called "degree mill". The Minister said he earned the degree through distance learning while he worked in the United States, but the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education rejected it as an illegitimate credential. "We would not rate a degree taken there," said the head of the Swedish department for evaluation of foreign qualifications.

The State Security Service (SSS) in Gombe State has discovered that 131 of the 936 Universal Basic Education teachers recruited in the state recently presented fake NCE certificates for employment. A member of the syndicate has confessed that they printed and sold fake NCE certificates issued by the Federal College of Education.