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Experts from many African and European countries have blamed lack of transparency and unethical practices as some of the reasons preventing Nigerian universities from making the list of best global institutions. Transparency in admissions, teachings and university administration were some of the criteria used for judging the best universities worldwide. They further said that Nigerian universities must train students on character and integrity for them to compete globally.

It has been argued, that the way to address the problem of unethical student recruitment agencies is to ban them. But are all education agents inherently bad? No. Are there serious issues and potential pitfalls? Absolutely. Although the use of education agents is fraught with potential problems, it is possible to develop ways to address legitimate concerns related to the holy trinity of accountability, integrity and transparency.

Higher education institutions play a deciding factor in the development of future leadership and national social cohesion. And here higher education leaders play a critical role. They speak publicly about the ethics of their institution; they explain the details of how their institution manages ethical transgressions on the part of administrators, faculty and students; and they are the first to admit when there has been a failure. Leaders of ethical institutions today can be held to account in a way that is unprecedented.

A developmental university must have well-crafted research ethical standards anchored in principles of democracy, social justice and human rights. Research ethical standards are important as they provide guidelines for researchers to ensure that specific values like integrity, transparency, respect, objectivity and accountability are strictly observed; they generate confidence in and support for research among both domestic and international research communities; and they help establish trust between researchers and research participants.

Ethics is not always dealing with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but may sometimes be a choice of a lesser of evils, a nuanced decision dealing with trade-offs or viewed as situational. How do we better equip students to better understand ethical dilemmas and how to approach them? EthicalSystems.org, collects and shares research on ethics which spans a wide variety of topics, including accounting, cheating and honesty, contextual influences, corporate culture, corporate governance, corruption, decision-making, leadership and teaching ethics, among others.

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is in talks with HRD Ministry, CBSE, AICTE, Medical Council of India (MCI) and other educational bodies to introduce course content on corruption and ethics to make the students aware of the scourge and its consequences. If implemented, students in schools and colleges will soon be imparted lessons on the menace of corruption, its debilitating impact on socio-economic sphere and ways of tackling it.

First, there was the #OromoProtest which led to the cancelation by the government in Ethiopia of the Ethiopia Higher Education Entrance Exam (EHEEE), which was scheduled to take place as of May 30. The leaking by unknown individuals and the dumping on the social media by Oromo activists of this national school leaving exam has now sparked a debate amongst Ethiopia’s net-citizens, and the media. Surprisingly (or not for that matter) the debate is on whether or not leaking the exams and dumping them online trespasses the moral obligation of safeguarding the academic lives of more than 250, 000 students who were readying to sit for the exams.

The spate of financial scandals that are rocking Chile have stirred a wholesome debate in the country on the importance of ethics in the teaching of economics. The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile’s economics and administration faculty has been under the spotlight since three of its former students, previously hailed as 'star students', were prosecuted and jailed for a week pending trial for tax fraud and other financial crimes

A doctoral student in higher education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, conducted a sociological research about corruption in higher education. Based on his examination of the 2009 Illinois admissions scandal, which centered on the university’s use of a separate, hidden admissions process to ease the entry of applicants with ties to politicians, donors, and university officials, his paper concludes that administrative misconduct frequently is "an organizational problem that demands organizational solutions."

The second university ethics and good governance movement summit has kicked off yesterday in Jimma University. Federal ethics and anti-corruption commission Head said universities should pay equal attention to producing ethical graduates as much as training competent ones. The Head added major construction projects at universities, bids on purchases, student canteen services, etc. should be based on accountability and transparency.