Search Page

Corruption is “a pernicious undercurrent” in every country, writes a researcher at International Higher Education at Boston College. In Armenia, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine, instructors face the dilemma of either ignoring cheating or taking the risk of dismissing students whose fees sustain the university. One study in Russia found that 72% of students in public universities had plagiarized from the internet. In India, the “survival of many small private universities depends on payments to government officials, recruiters and visiting committees, and fees paid by non-attending students”.

Academic fraud takes place in epic proportions in Bangladesh, from copying music to copying homework and buying readymade thesis. Contract cheating and plagiarism are not only widespread among students, but it is also practiced by some faculty members of Dhaka University. Also, there are many incidents of the student wing of political parties forcing professors to pass them in an exam after submitting a wrong answer script or without even appearing for it.

Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees. The investigative team had been created in 2016 after the collapse of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges, which set off a wave of complaints from students about predatory activities at for-profit schools. The institutions had been accused of widespread fraud that involved misrepresenting enrolment benefits, job placement rates and program offerings, which could leave students with huge debts and no degrees.

A Madrid university has suspended an official over a fake degree scandal. The King Juan Carlos University suspended the director of the school's Public Law Institute. The department allegedly awarded master's degrees to two Popular Party (PP) politicians without them completing the work. However the former said last week the university had pressured him to lie about the qualifications. The university's president denies pressuring the director. He also announced on Friday an internal probe into all the university's departments.

Political interference in Africa’s universities is not new. Universities’ governance was seen as ‘captured’ for narrow political rather than academic ends during the 1980s and 1990s. The continent’s universities started changing from the middle of the 1990s. Strong governance structures were prioritised. Governments promised to help steady institutions so they could focus on their academic missions. But studies funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and conducted by CODESRIA, suggest that not much has changed. The same tensions and crises associated with the old political order – student disturbances, harassment of academic staff and widespread academic corruption – persist.

Kyrgyz are now focusing on a new standardized test that officials contend will help eradicate graft in universities. Low teacher salaries and the long-standing practice of selling grades make that target a challenge. Many students simply purchase their degrees. In exchange, the instructor allows him to pass without taking exams, or completing the assignments.