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A Sydney businessman accused of ripping off foreign students is continuing to run his operation despite facing 22 charges of fraud and misconduct. According to a former employee, the company, posing as the client, sets up fake email accounts to try and obtain visas, in direct infringement of The Migration Act.

Macquarie University has revoked the degrees of two students and prevented a further 10 from graduating after an independent investigation revealed the students used an online ghost-writing service to complete their assignments. The Northern Sydney University is the latest institution to finalise its internal investigations into the MyMaster cheating racket, in which up to 1,000 students from 16 universities hired the online company MyMaster to write their assignments and sit for online tests.

Australia's leading universities, including the prestigious University of Sydney and the Australian National University, have engaged corrupt education agents who are falsifying the academic records of prospective international students to ensure their acceptance into the Australian tertiary system.

Australian universities are paying more than an estimated $250 million each year to unregulated middlemen for the recruitment of international students, despite widespread acknowledgement that a number of these agents are corrupt and deal in fraudulent documents.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) says that universities in NSW should consider a range of key initiatives including separating the academic compliance and incentive functions of their international student offices to reduce the risk of corruption.

At the helm of the company embroiled in a large-scale academic cheating scandal is a Chinese-born businesswoman. The enterprising 30-year-old has used her accounting degree to build a lucrative ghostwriting service, called MyMaster. This pitch has seen the MyMaster company turn over at least $160,000 during 2014 and return more than 900 fraudulent assignments to students prepared to hand over up to $1,000 for the work.

No es probable que el profesor universitario de Perth descubierto por amenazar a estudiantes chinas con suspenderlas si no mantenían relaciones sexuales con él sea el único académico que explote la vulnerabilidad de estudiantes atrapadas en el negocio de visados-por-títulos, según la Comisión contra el Crimen y Corrupción de Australia Occidental.

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.

The need to sell more courses to foreign students is placing universities' reputations at risk and education is slowly being privatised. To replace the missing income due to fall in government funds, universities allow private students, particularly from overseas to buy university places. The fees overseas students pay can represent up to two-fifths of the budget of universities.