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According to the Head of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), essay mills have become “public health and safety issue”, affecting all of society. As a result of students cheating in their degrees, there will be people entering into professions who are not qualified to carry out the work that is required. This practice is spreading now to the sixth-formers going to essay mills to get through their coursework at school.

You can now go to jail for faking a degree on your CV According to South Africa's (SA) National Qualifications Framework Act, falsely or fraudulently claiming a higher education qualification is a criminal offence subject to a prison sentence or a fine. Bragging that you have a doctorate or other degree on LinkedIn or Twitter bio, can be enough to get you into serious trouble. Under the new Law, operators of bogus institutions will also face jail for up to five years if claiming to be registered as education institutions in SA or abroad.

According to a report published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the International Quality Group, corruption in higher education vary between countries but it highlights unethical, inappropriate, and illegal practices. Some examples include university leaders and professors with fake or undeserved doctoral degrees impacting on the governance of some Russian universities, ‘ghost advising’ or absenteeism by senior academics, delegating their responsibilities for teaching or supervision to junior colleagues or research students, is widespread in Kosovo, or students and teachers sexually harassing, threatening or harming academic teaching staff in Uganda.

Early research findings on academic corruption suggest that accreditation and quality assurance bodies in some countries are having success in handling the problem, but questions about how to deal with the unwieldy issue remain a work in progress. And while the topic is complex and multifaceted, research on student attitudes towards cheating offers some insights into how an emphasis on integrity might reverse the problem, which has long been the scourge of the higher education accreditation profession.