Experts and teachers discuss the fight against academic fraud in schools in Africa, including common corrupt practices and potential solutions. 

Education officials have been caught helping private examination students take their exams after receiving bribes of over one million Leones, equivalent to about £110 Sterling per student. The Anti-Corruption Commission has paraded them on the streets in Freetown. Nevertheless, human rights experts are questioning the legitimacy of today’s tactics of publicly shaming the accused before they are charged to court.

Exam malpractice is a highly organized "industry" between school proprietors, officials of the State Ministry of Education, officials of West African School Certificate examination, invigilators, machineries and the students themselves. According to a study, this is a result of poor implementation of examination rules, no fear of punishment, inadequate preparation for the exams, the disloyalty of examination body staff and students and parental threats. Many parents prefer to bribe the examiner rather than pay for extra lessons for their child, which may still not result in examination success.

After an attempt to cheat in the ongoing Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations, the Teachers Service Commission has commenced disciplinary action against errant teachers of a Kisii school, Nairobi. The Teachers Service Commission Chief Executive said seven teachers and a school principal are already facing action. Capital FM News established that a Chemistry paper had been sneaked out of the examination room but was quickly confiscated when the attempt to compromise the exam occurred at Monianku Secondary School.

Massive leaks have discredited the country’s education system. The French, history and geography tests will resume on 10 July. At the Immaculate Conception School of Dakar, a candidate for the baccalaureate was caught by the exam supervisor as he was consulting the answers to the history and geography tests on his laptop. This discovery of cheating at the Immaculate Conception School triggered a tsunami that is now shaking up the entire Senegalese education system.

Following a directive in late-2016 of the President of the 5th-Phase Government of Tanzania, verification (by a Special Presidential Task Force) of the academic credentials of reportedly 400 035 civil servants who draw emoluments from Government coffers unearthed much rot! The probe revealed that 9,932 public service employees got where they are today on the back of educational certificates which were either forged outright, borrowed, bought or stolen.