A Serbian minister stands accused of plagiarism and his mentor appears to have lied about having a doctorate in twin scandals that have cast a long shadow over the Balkan nation's ivory tower.

The Centre for Educational Development of Belgrade Open School organized two round tables on corruption and the quality of higher education in February 2013, on higher education, corruption and reform. Both round tables were organized within the Anti-Corruption Student Network in South East Europe project.

One third of the professors of Kragujevac University Law School, its dean and the Minister's assistant for Higher Education were arrested on corruption charges. Professors are accused of allowing students to pass exams without taking tests and selling degrees in exchange of bribes. This unprecedented corruption scandal casts doubts on the value of some law degrees and the qualification of some judges.

Almost a third of the polled students in Serbia said that they would bribe somebody if that was the only way to pass an exam, according to a survey conducted by the Students Union of Serbia. 69 % would cheat in their exams if it was certain they would not be caught, while 53 percent said they would not feel bad about the cheating. Seven in ten students said that corruption is involved in enrolment procedures, and 79% heard of cheating in the exams.

Ten weeks in charge of Belgrade's most unruly high school killed its Director's passion for education. Few of the staff members were willing to cooperate with her efforts to stop a system of bribery for good grades. When the police caught one math teacher accepting a marked 50-euros note from a student and the problem came out into the open, the teachers rebelled against her with a vote of no confidence in her authority.