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Corruption charges and the arrest of former vice-chancellor of Bharathiar University still fresh, another controversy erupted on Monday, this time in the form of a video. The clip that surfaced showed the head of the Tamil department receiving money from a person, allegedly for a posting in the university. The state higher education department has decided to send the video to the police department and probe its authenticity as well as the allegations.

The president-to-be of Taiwan’s top higher education institution had been due to take up his post on 1 February after his selection to the top university position by a university committee in January. However, his taking of office has been delayed after it was revealed in January that he was an independent director of the board of a private company, and that the company’s vice chairman sat on the university selection committee. He has also been subjected to plagiarism allegations relating to a paper he presented at a conference in May 2017, but the university said in late January it would not formally investigate the claims.

In order to improve the quality of published research and to crack down on so-called ‘predatory’ academic publishers – who charge fees to authors but fail to provide adequate quality control, or make misleading claims about their quality – India’s University Grants Commission (UGC) has published lists of approved journals for publishing research papers. The UGC, a statutory body that oversees university education in India, has now linked academic promotions and recruitment to its system of Academic Performance Indicators which will only recognise papers published in journals that are on the approved lists.

A senior African academic has lost his job for the second time after an Australian university that appointed him in January belatedly discovered he had been forced to quit his South African post the previous November following charges of serial plagiarism.

The government will adopt stricter measures to verify overseas academic diplomas and tighten its monitoring of universities hiring staff with such qualifications.