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The alleged peddling of diplomas to Chinese students has puzzled the universities implicated, which are now concerned over the effect of aspersions on the international renown of French tertiary training. Two inquiries – one judicial and one administrative – were opened up following complaints alleging that deals were done in which Chinese students were awarded diplomas in exchange for large amounts of money.

Several hundred Chinese students enrolled at the Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) at Toulon University, are thought to have bought their degrees. The preliminary inquiry begun on 26 March into "bribery, bribe-taking, and fraud" is investigating practices thought to have started four years ago.

According to the report of the general inspection of the administration of the national education and the research (IGAENR), the evaluation of the students at the university is not good. Actually, the fragmentation of the evaluations (due to the transition to the half yearly of the studies connected to the passage in the LMD) and the complexity of rules, return the illegible system for the students. It also entails disparities of treatment; thus universities develop their own rules of evaluation: the faculties with big workforce opt for the multiple choice question paper, faster and easy to organize. Besides, the cheating is another factor that undermine the credibility of the diplomas: according to the questioned students, between 25 and 50 % of the students resort to it.

Several hundreds of students cheat on exams every year and the methods and imaginations are better than ever; programmed calculators; copying from Internet; fake identity card and so on. However, the sanctions can be up to two years exclusion from sitting an exam.