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Counterfeiting or purchasing of downright forged certificates, diplomas and degrees are some of the crudest forms of academic fraud in Zimbabwe. Experts say the employment of individuals with bogus credentials can be a public relations fiasco for both private companies and government. According to the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (ZIMSEC) spokesperson, the examinations body has been working with employers nationwide to verify academic credentials, uncovering a shocking number of workers with forged school and college certificates.

Two teachers have been arrested after practicing at Seme Secondary school for eight and two years’ respectively. They got their jobs by using fake qualifications. It is said that the Mpumalanga Department of Education suffered a combined loss of more than R2.4m. The department apparently became suspicious about their qualifications in 2017 and asked them to resubmit their qualifications. The two will return to the Volkrust Regional Court on February 6.

Following a high-level meeting last Friday, top officers from the police service, the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) will be dispatched to six parts of the country to investigate reports of plans to cheat in the forthcoming national examinations. The chairman of KNEC warned principals against collecting money from parents to buy fake examination materials for their candidates.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) implemented new regulations in order to prevent plagiarism and academic misconduct by students. They required every institution to establish a mechanism to enhance awareness about responsible conduct of research and academic activities, promotion of academic integrity and deterrence from plagiarism. The ministry of human resource development told a meeting of vice-chancellors that plagiarism software would be provided free to all institutions. However, similarity-detection is only possible if the original material is available online. And plagiarism is not just about text similarity, but also recycling of copied figures, tables, and photographs.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) had earlier made it mandatory for all varsities to check the research work through a plagiarism detection tool, which forced the varsities to purchase/initiate the process of buying the software license. However, the Union HRD ministry will now soon provide a free online plagiarism detection tool to all the varsities of the country to check research work or publications. The varsities can access the software/tool using their credentials to identify unoriginal content and safeguard the institution's reputation.