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When the Ministry of Education in 2014 introduced its strict “no cheating” policy for school leavers, many of those who had cheated their way through in previous years surely breathed a sigh of relief. The ministry has been applauded for its tough stance; after all, there’s little point in an education system in which you can cheat your way to top grades. The problem is that, although getting into university is harder, getting through university hasn’t changed much at all. Once you’re in – depending on the institution – the chances to cheat are as widespread as ever. And that means at least some of the 250,000 students in higher education don’t have to learn in order to graduate.

The higher education and research minister has warned new students to make sure they enrol in higher education institutions that are authorised and accredited by the state. During the past few years many new private institutions had opened as the numbers of young people qualified to enter higher education increased but places in public universities remained low. She stressed that “the ministry refuses to ratify or recognise the diplomas of institutions without authorisation.”

In the season of examination results and college admissions, we are again reminded of the dismal condition of the Indian education system. The Punjab School Education Board has, in an act of benevolence, granted 30 grace marks to Class 12 students. This helped lift the state’s pass percentage from 54% to 76%. In Gujarat, the pass percentage in Class 10 dropped from 73% in 2014-15 to 63% this year — which the state education minister attributes to the installation of CCTV cameras in examination centres that have checked cheating. Many Class 10 students in Gujarat could not answer elementary questions in a retest, despite securing over 80% in the objective section of the mathematics paper.

China is warning its students to steer clear of fake universities. An information website has published a list of 30 such institutions following the annual college entry exam in June. This is the sixth such list in existence. Apparently, faking an entire educational institution isn’t all that difficult. And authorities say they’re becoming harder to spot. No less than a dozen provinces and regions – including Beijing and Shanghai - were mentioned in a list by sdaxue.com, an education information website, according to Xinhua. Some 30 fake universities were mentioned, compounding an already fat list of 400 since 2013.

Algeria has temporarily blocked access to social media across the country in an attempt to fight cheating in secondary school exams. The decision to block social media was taken to protect students de la publication of "bogus questions on those networks", officials told Algeria's APS news agency. Almost half of students are now being forced to retake the baccalaureat exam, starting on Sunday, after the initial session was marred by online leaking.

In Algeria the gendarmerie carried out ‘tens of arrests’ for fraud by officials, teachers and heads of some exam centres. Papers had been leaked via social networks, through more than 150 Facebook accounts, which had enabled the police to identify and arrest perpetrators. Meanwhile, 53 people have been arrested in a number of towns in Morocco for their alleged involvement in baccalauréat fraud. The arrests concerned 22 administrators of social network chat pages and sites for facilitating exam paper leaks and answers in return for money

The online disclosure of college admittance high-school exams has led to nationwide disruptions in Egypt and Algeria. Despite vows by authorities to make sure tests are secure, exam questions have been leaked prior to exam administration in both countries for several years. An October decree by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called for prison sentences for unauthorized disclosure of testing materials. But that decrees has failed to deter a cluster of Facebook groups that have leaked exam questions.

The Education Minister has threatened to use Article 44 of the interim constitution in tackling many ugly problems in the country's higher-education sector. Several private and state universities have operated programmes recently without proper permission. The latest scandal surrounds Bangkok Thonburi University (BTU). Though permitted to run a master's degree programme in educational management for 500 graduate students each year, the university has recruited 2,500 students to its programmes annually.

Diploma mills have been on the United States radar screen as far back as 1876. Today, credential fraud in higher education is a billion-dollar industry, by some accounts. It has spiralled into a major threat for employers and university admissions offices. And it spans the globe. The United States is home to the largest number of diploma mills, with more than 1,000 known operations in 2011, according to Verifile, a UK-based pre-employment screening company.

First, there was the #OromoProtest which led to the cancelation by the government in Ethiopia of the Ethiopia Higher Education Entrance Exam (EHEEE), which was scheduled to take place as of May 30. The leaking by unknown individuals and the dumping on the social media by Oromo activists of this national school leaving exam has now sparked a debate amongst Ethiopia’s net-citizens, and the media. Surprisingly (or not for that matter) the debate is on whether or not leaking the exams and dumping them online trespasses the moral obligation of safeguarding the academic lives of more than 250, 000 students who were readying to sit for the exams.