Night after night, young Kenyan scholars sweat blood writing academic essays — on practically any given subject, often to gruelingly tight deadlines — for paying college students in far-away countries to pass off as their own work. The credit is non-existent, the pay pitiful given the expertise involved. But many of these tireless ghost writers don’t see themselves as exploited, nor as agents of fraud: With upbeat pragmatism, one radio reporter describes them as “finding African solutions to western problems.” The line gets a laugh in Eloïse King’s documentary “The Shadow Scholars,” but this engrossing, morally nuanced film isn’t flippant or glib about the multibillion-dollar “contract cheating” industry that grants a meager livelihood to many learned, enterprising Kenyans who can’t afford to realize their own academic dreams.

Working from the research of Patricia Kingori — a Kenyan-born, U.K.-based sociologist who in 2021 became the youngest Black person ever...