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In a national survey on research integrity by Dutch academics, 40,000 researchers, from PhD students to full professors, admitted to committing at least one of the 11 questionable research practices. One in 12 researchers is estimated to have fabricated or falsified research results in the last three years. According to a postdoctoral researcher and lead investigator of the survey, findings are already being discussed with policymakers in universities and medical centres in the Netherlands.

The Gombe State High Court sentenced a retired secondary school principal to two years imprisonment for fraud and running of illegal institutions. Between 2009 and 2015, he defrauded candidates of over N3.8 million in the guise of offering them admission into his three illegal higher institutions.

San Diego Ashford University, and its parent company, Zovio, have been fined US$22.37 million for fraudulent admissions tactics that left some students in serious debt and without degrees. According to San Diego Superior Court judge, the college has made bogus claims about career outcomes, costs and financial aid to lure vulnerable students to enrol in the online university programmes.

When a doctoral student denounced the theft of her work, she was told that it was part of the game. One in five PhD students in the academic world is facing this practice. According to an online survey conducted among 1,800 PhD students and young doctors, 21% of respondents said they had seen someone else take credit for their work. Concerned about the impact on their future careers, many PhD students choose to remain silent on such abuse.

Following the arrest of a lecturer at the University of Kigali over allegedly forging academic documents, Rwanda’s Higher Education Council (HEC) decided to withdraw recognition for PhD degrees obtained from the United States Atlantic International University. The university has an accreditation from a UK based independent international educational agency, however, dismissed by HEC, because it is not a government agency in charge of accreditation in the UK or elsewhere.

Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC) had discovered fake institutions in Benin awarding PhD degrees after students completed bogus studies in less than one year. According to NUC, academic projects and theses were sold for about NGN3,000 (about US$7.32) per copy, and sexual harassment was prevalent. Many of these fraudulent institutions are run by Nigerian proprietors who target students from Nigeria, where public universities struggle to accommodate a high number of qualified students seeking admission.

To promote their academic position and for other financial benefits, many teachers including university professors, submit their thesis papers based on plagiarism. Last January, three professors at Dhaka University were dismissed following accusations of plagiarism in their research work. In the last five years at least 10 teachers of the same institution have also been accused of plagiarism or violation of copyright rules in their research works.

A former director and two former deputy directors of Dong Do University in Vietnam were prosecuted for issuing hundreds of fake degrees and illegally earning more than US$310,000. The indictment also points out that the Ministry of Education and Training failed to carry out its responsibilities in monitoring the implementation of regulations on university enrolment and training.

The University of South Carolina has accepted the resignation of its president after he admitted plagiarizing part of a speech by the former head of the US Special Operations Command during a weekend commencement speech. In his letter, the president took full responsibility for the oversight of citing the text transcribed in the speech.

Two Ho Chi Min City university academics have lost their positions after they were found plagiarising content from an international peer-reviewed journal. They confessed that for one of their published articles, they had translated 80% of the original article without getting the author’s permission or citing his work as the source.