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Most secondary school authorities handed over the first term report cards to their students with various remarks. Those who attended classes regularly and worked hard during the term had good averages while others who played games and occupied drinking spots during school hours brought home fake report cards to impress their parents. The "ghost" students were last Friday seen in cyber cafés scanning and modifying their reports cards.

Insisting that the government must scrap its plan for graduates to take external, state-supervised exams, protesting students have rejected the Education Ministry's proposed compromise. Macedonian students who last week staged a mass protest against plans for "external testing" have rejected the latest concessions of the Education Minister.

Denouncing the reluctance of universities to fight plagiarism, French teachers and researchers have launched a petition. They believe it is urgent to act in order to protect the legitimacy of degrees.

Teacher unions have expressed concern over fresh reports of examination malpractice in some parts of the country. This follows reports that 30 people, among them 13 teachers and 9 pupils were recently arrested in Kapiri and Mkushi for being in possession of grade nine 2014 examination papers.

At the helm of the company embroiled in a large-scale academic cheating scandal is a Chinese-born businesswoman. The enterprising 30-year-old has used her accounting degree to build a lucrative ghostwriting service, called MyMaster. This pitch has seen the MyMaster company turn over at least $160,000 during 2014 and return more than 900 fraudulent assignments to students prepared to hand over up to $1,000 for the work.

An eight-month investigation by former federal prosecutor Kenneth L. Wainstein has found that more than 3100 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students – almost half of them athletes — were given credit for "irregular" (read: nonexistent) classes over an 18-year period from 1993-2011 as part of a organized scheme that allowed many to remain sports-eligible.

A university of Bordeaux student was condemned to three months imprisonment for having cheated several times, assisted by accomplices, during law exams. He appeared in the dock of the fifth chamber of the magistrate's court escorted by two policemen.

Thirty nine grade 12 pupils have been arrested in Lusaka over suspected examination malpractices. The 39 were rounded up in Lusaka's Mtendere Compound at a house where they were being guided through a leaked English examination paper.

The number of double or multiple degree programmes is growing and opinion is divided on whether they are beneficial or an example of academic fraud. A proper debate is needed on standards and quality so they do not become dismissed as "discount degrees".

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu) has piled on the pressure on the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) describing the doctorate awarded to first lady last week as a "Genetically Modified Doctorate", which has shamed local academia.