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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.

2,400 students from the colleges of agriculture, environmental and human sciences and engineering have had their marks withheld by UNISA due to concerns over cheating. Over 750 warning letter have been issued and other 200 cases were still outstanding. The consequences of cheating can results in disqualification from future tests or examinations, and exclusions or expulsions from the university.

A professor at the University of South Africa (UNISA) gave a student plagiarised work of his research assistant who left UNISA. He helped him to fraudulently gain a master’s degree and eventually a Ph.D. He was given a written warning by UNISA valid 12 months.

A senior African academic has lost his job for the second time after an Australian university that appointed him in January belatedly discovered he had been forced to quit his South African post the previous November following charges of serial plagiarism.