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People in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have been found buying fake degrees of all sorts from diploma mills and other bogus universities. Those universities have no physical existence and operate only through websites. Most diploma mills are operating from Britain or United States where academic standards are presumed to be very high. Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigations compiled a list of over 10,000 persons who obtained fake degrees from diploma mills in USA. A significant number of them are from South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. Currently, there are about 80 notorious diploma mills that operate from the United States and the UK.

Few people enter the teaching profession for the money. Teachers repeatedly describe it as "a vocation", widely recognized as a euphemism for poorly paid. But for a few enterprising teachers, the education system is rife with opportunities for personal financial gain. A report on corruption in education, published this week by UNESCO highlights ways in which heads, teachers and education officials can extort and embezzle school funds.

Thousands of teenagers are trying to cheat their way into university by plagiarising stories and phrases from the internet. One in 20 of Britain's brightest young brains is copying material from the web according to a study done by the Universities and Colleges Admission Service. The study, which involved examining 50,000 personal statements, found that 5% used material from the internet, most from one free website, but direct copying of large chunks was rarer - less than 1%.

A university has excluded 50 foreign students it believes used forged certificates to enhance their applications. It said it regretted having to exclude the students because many of them appeared to be victims of bogus "agents", based either in China or Britain (49 students came from China and one from Taiwan), who were paid to submit applications, including supporting documents, on their behalf. The forgeries, mainly certificates for English language qualifications or degrees awarded by other universities, are of such high quality that they could not have been detected by the usual checks carried out by admissions officers. The university is introducing a number of changes to its admissions procedures, one of which will be to draw up and publish on its website a list of approved agents.

A leaked e-mail from Manchester Metropolitan University shows how university staff are being urged to increase the number of top degree grades to keep pace with competing universities. The leaking of the e-mail provides further evidence of the concern among academics over the pressure to manipulate degree awards to improve the public image of universities and to make them more attractive to applicants. The number of students achieving a first class degree at UK universities has more than doubled since the mid-1990s.

Researchers investigating the number of cases of plagiarism in the UK's 168 universities and colleges found over 9,000 incidents recorded in the 100 institutions that responded to the survey. Overall, there were 9,229 cases of plagiarism reported by 93 institutions, which is equivalent to 7.2 cases for every 1,000 students. Some 83 institutions gave figures for cases of plagiarism by undergraduates. On average there were 6,312 cases, which equates to 6.7 cases per 1,000 students.

Fake degrees from every university in Wales are being sold on the internet for less than £40 a go, a Wales on Sunday investigation has found. The website, called the Fake Certificate Factory, offers degrees from all of Wales' top universities – including Cardiff, Swansea, Glamorgan, Aberystwyth and Bangor. Wales on Sunday was able to buy a degree in English literature bearing the crest of Cardiff University for just £39.95, which we received the next day by post. And for an extra £49.95 we were offered a fake transcript, which provides a detailed breakdown of exam marks supposedly achieved by a student in their final university exams.

Some language schools are being used to sell false papers, enabling immigrants to obtain student visas. Some are paying up to £600 for fake documents which they use in visa applications to extend their stay. More than half of 83 language colleges recently inspected could be shut down. Up to 50,000 students could be using such scams to stay illegally.

One-third of students admit to cheating at university by copying ideas from books or the internet according to a survey. Based on 1,022 undergraduates at 119 universities and colleges, the study found that one in six students admitted they copied work from friends while 10% said they looked for essays online. Male students were more likely to copy work from their friends (21%) than female students (14%), the study revealed.

Plagiarism could threaten the value of a degree from Oxford University as students increasingly copy large slabs of work from the internet and submit it as their own, the university warns. Many of the plagiarism cases that were referred to the proctor's office involved international students whose first language was not English.