An awareness campaign against widespread corruption in universities, which includes bribery by students to get good results, false diplomas and sex to gain promotion, has been launched by CONAC, the national anti-corruption commission. According to a source “The main kind of corruption here is the sale of grades by certain teachers. Students whose work is bad get teachers or education officials to improve their grades”. CONAC found instances of nepotism, counterfeiting of results, false diplomas, promotions in return for sex, and abuse of power.

Sexual harassment in universities is to be investigated by the National Union of Students, which is conducting the UK’s first survey of staff sexual misconduct in higher education. Students will be asked whether they have experienced or witnessed sexual misconduct by staff and about their experience of reporting this behaviour to their institution. The research project is being carried out by the NUS women’s campaign. Researchers will consider professional boundaries and examine what types of behaviour students are comfortable dealing with from higher education staff.

Lecherous lecturers who demand sex in return for good marks could be named and shamed if students attending the HEAids National Youth Conference Durban conference. The UN representative said that power relations at campuses proved to be a “very big issue”, particularly the role of lecturers and sex for marks. The students attending one of the sessions came up with an “interesting concept” - to identify the offending lecturers on an application “grey list” so that their names would be known.