The Danish Government has temporarily suspended processing of some applications for internships in the Scandinavian country’s green sector as well as jobs for herdsmen and farm managers, citing doubts on the authenticity of academic papers from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
The Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration (SIRI) said the move affects applications for residence and work permits for internships in cases where applicants are said to have been educated in the three East African nations.
‘This applies, in the first instance, to applications for residence and work permits as an intern, as well as for herdsman and farm manager, where the applicant in their current or previous application has stated that they have an education from Uganda, Tanzania, or Kenya,’ SIRI said.
‘Applications for a residence and work permit as an accompanying family member to the affected applicant group are also included. This applies as well to applications where the applicant is already staying in Denmark and wants to change their internship host, or wants to apply as a herdsman after the end of their internship,’ it added.
The agency under the Danish Ministry of Immigration and Integration revealed that tightened rules on processing of applications from Uganda for a residence and work permit for an agricultural internship in February 2026 unearthed suspicious academic documents linked to the trio.
‘The stricter case processing has uncovered conditions, including patterns in grade information as well as other aspects of the submitted educational documents, that give cause for severe doubt about the authenticity and the contents of the submitted educational documents from applicants with an educational background from Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, where similar patterns have been observed,’ SIRI said.
As part of the stricter case processing, applicants who were in the process of getting a residence permit were invited for interviews before a decision was made on their requests.
This was targeted at verifying the applicants’ credibility and whether they genuinely fulfilled the conditions in order to get a residence and work permit in Denmark.
Denmark said that applicants affected by the suspension would be informed directly, even as it expected to resume processing applications by June 2026.
Agriculture is an economic mainstay in Denmark, with approximately 60 percent of the landmass in the Scandinavian country under farming. Nearly three-quarters of the Danish land is under cultivation for livestock feed.
Kenya faces a major crisis with thousands of fake academic papers routinely used to secure employment, both in private and public sectors.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and the Public Service Commission (PSC) have stepped purges against forged academic certificates with some civil servants being dragged to court and convicted. The EACC estimates that more than 500 public officers in Kenya hold fake academic documents.
Several public and private institutions in Kenya today are forced to verify the authenticity of academic certificates to help deal with the menace.
For instance, a report by the PSC shows than in the 2023/24 financial year, some 449 civil servants in Kenya were shown the door for using forged academic papers to secure employment and promotion. The Postal Corporation of Kenya in 2024 revealed that 29 of its staff were fired over forged academic papers.