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A federal grand jury in Kansas indicted a former college-basketball coach last month on charges that he arranged for his players to receive phony academic credit and stole $120,000 in Pell Grants. The former coach faces a total of 51 years in prison and over $1.5-million in fines if found guilty of all counts.

Plans by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to export its examinations system to China have been put on hold following charges of fraud by students looking to gain entry to Britain on study visas. Staff at a Sino-British college, Sea Rich, raised concerns that many students were not studying, but had been promised by the university a two-year-year HND for payments of US$2,200. The students had also been promised assistance by the university to get UK entry clearance.

In spring 2004 interviews were conducted with 43 rectors, vice rectors, and administrators at five private universities. A consensus emerged that successful licensing or accreditation applications, with few exceptions, required some form of bribery. Licensing might require a bribe of US$ 200 about two months' salary for a typical academic - while accreditation might call for a 10 or 20 times greater "gratuity."

The legal advisor to the Eduardo Mondlane University has denied that there was anything improper in giving scholarships to people who do not work at the university. In 2003 alone, over 147,000 US dollars, money that should have been used to send teachers to take further degrees abroad, in order to build up the institutional capacity of the university, were allegedly spent instead on the Vice-Chancellor's daughter, two children of the head of the universities public relations and 16 others.

According to investigations conducted in Nicaragua, among the 3 500 teachers from autonomous colleges who actually collect a salary on a monthly basis, in reality only 1 945 of them are actually teaching. At least 555 individual salaries are therefore paid to fictitious teachers or to individuals falsely (fraudulently) using the names of teachers.

The news of examination leakages has rocked the West African Examination Council. The leaked papers have forced the council to cancel and reschedule the papers. Both staff and auxiliary workers are now under probe. The leakage occurred despite various measures to eliminate cheating. The council has designed a website and introduced the embossment of passport photographs on certificates to avoid impersonation of candidates.

Three former professors at Oral Roberts University have sued the evangelical institution in Tulsa (Okla) filing a petition in state court that accuses the university's president of using university resources to back a local mayoral candidate and to pay for an extravagant lifestyle for his family. The university released a statement denying the allegations.

The "Miasin" youth movement has launched an anti-corruption drive in several of Yerevan's colleges and universities that features the photographs of bribe-taking teachers being pasted. On the walls of buildings located next to Yerevan State University there are photos of at least twenty faculty and administration members with the word "bribe taker" written on them.

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Universities Australia have launched a revision version of a Code for Responsible Research. The purpose of the Code is to guide institutions and researchers in responsible research practices. It embraces topics such as managing data and materials; publication and dissemination of findings; attribution; peer review processes and conflict of interest.

If the academic profession does not maintain adequate income levels, academic performance throughout the system inevitably suffers. Academics must receive sufficient remuneration to live an appropriate middle-class lifestyle. Through an Egyptian example of university professors demanding sums of money to their students, this article deals with the inevitable consequences of inadequate academic salaries.