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.

A report revealed that hundreds of university students had been disciplined or expelled for making sexually explicit, homophobic or racist comments on social media. In order to improve online safety for staff and students, Universities UK has published guidance for its members on how to tackle harassment including cyberstalking, trolling and sexting.

Higher Education Statistics reports the number of Chinese students studying at UK universities has reached record levels. In the meantime, there is also an increase in the number of Chinse students who are being ripped off by fraudsters for thousands of pounds. For fear of being deported, these students pay huge sums to scammers who act as police officers.

In an interview with a local daily newspaper, Malaysia’s Education Minister said that efforts are underway to do a large-scale change in the world of academia. A review of the Statuary Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 605 to exclude academics from several rules governing civil servants will be carried out. This involves issues of academic freedom, integrity, plagiarism, and others.

Eleven Peruvian universities will teach their students how to fight corruption, using emblematic cases registered in the last 30 years as the basis. The President of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference and the Latin American Episcopal Council who presented the course described the problem of corruption as a social virus that infects public and private institutions and undermines the resources needed by the state to address the fight against poverty.

According to a computer scientist and expert in contract cheating, Kenya has established itself as the centre of the academic cheating universe. The vast majority of university students’ work for essay factories which are delivered to British students with a guarantee they contain no plagiarism and all anonymous. In an effort to clamp down on the cheats and after pressure from the British Government, PayPal announced it would block payments to essay factories.

A preliminary report on the number of teachers in Guinea reveals that out of 50,000 teachers concerned, 6,381 have not been registered. According to the secretary of the Free Trade Union of Teachers and Researchers of Guinea, many of the teachers listed have been excluded. This grooming of the education sector is part of the agreement to end the Guinean teachers strike signed by the union of teachers and the government on 10 January 2019.

Academics say the use of the electronic device is difficult to police in crowded exam halls. There has been an increased number of breaches of exam regulations, up from 56 last year to 83. Trinity College recorded 42 breaches of exam regulations this year, along with 10 incidents of cheating. This has prompted a number of UK colleges introduced blanket bans on wristwatches of any kind.

A number of senior officials in the Eastern Cape have been accused of corruption in relation to an R1 billion-school nutrition programme in the province; another case involves irregularities in relation to school infrastructure provisioning or allegations of corruption in the awarding of a contract to EduSolutions by the Limpopo Department of Education. The contract for the procurement of textbooks for schools in the province was canceled in 2012 after millions had been paid to EduSolutions.