Government sponsored students in institutions of tertiary education are likely to be busted for forging certificates. The students forge the certificates to get government scholarships after performing badly at senior secondary school.

"We have already written a couple of letters to students at the University of Botswana and Institute of Health Sciences. I believe that there are many others elsewhere and we are busy checking all the certificates obtained in Zimbabwe. I think we will end up with many students' sponsorships being terminated due to this problem," said the director of Student Placement and Welfare Mosoma Kgotla. He was speaking after the police arrested six students from the Francistown Institute of Health Sciences for uttering false academic certificates. Kgotla stated that the process of vetting certificates is slow because it has to be done thoroughly if it is to achieve the goal of weeding out the fraudsters.

He said the problem of forged certificates is not new. It has been made public by students who took the department to court after their sponsorship to study at a Malaysian university were terminated. "When the police went there to investigate, they were made familiar with the originals' security features which we were not aware of. Following this we put aside all the certificates obtained in Zimbabwe for screening," Kgotla said. He added that they are more familiar with the security features of the Cambridge certificates obtained in Botswana.

He appealed to students who had cheated their way into tertiary education institutions to confess for they would be caught sooner or later. "What I can tell them is that the cat is out of the bag and those who are still lying low should know that we are coming to get them," Kgotla said. He stated that those who have been caught are now revealing other culprits' names.

"In some cases, parents are involved in these scams. We appeal to them to avoid taking the short route. They should let their children repeat if they have failed so that they can upgrade their marks and be sponsored legally," he said.

He indicated that the students who were caught were struggling in grasping basic lessons and this forced lecturers to check their profiles and certificates thoroughly. He stated that if the students had failed their Cambridge, they would always fail in their tertiary education. "They can always repeat and pass and we will sponsor them," Kgotla said.