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South Korea’s National Assembly last week focused on the role of the prestigious Ewha Womans University as part of its fourth round of hearings into an influence peddling scandal surrounding embattled South Korean President. Since early December the assembly has held four rounds of hearings, to gather evidence on whether the presidents close confidante used her friendship to influence policy and wrongly secure millions of dollars in funding for her foundations from South Korean conglomerates.

Universities across the country may now have to resort to cashless means like bank transfers, cheques and credit/debit cards while making use of periodic funds from University Grants Commission (UGC). The commission said the move was in order to bring in accountability, transparency and seamlessness in the process of transfer of grants. The commission said it has virtually made payments cashless and decreased the interface between stakeholders and employees of the organisation.

Social accountability projects are implemented with citizen engagement to ensure certain degree of accountability at all levels. Two social accountability projects have been implemented, operating in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Act 2009. These projects aim to improve involvement of citizens in the management of local government finance.

Freshmen to universities with financial autonomy have called on the universities to publicise tuition fees so that they and their families can manage the sum actively. A local newspaper on Friday reported that some universities “forget” to publicise tuition fees, which made students and their families confused and worried about transparency at the universities. In the middle of last month, second-year students at the National Economics University were shocked when the university announced a 30 per cent increase in tuition fees in the coming academic year.

The Chinese government is buying influence over Australian universities by donating libraries and funds for institutes as part of a broader push to strengthen its soft power in the country, two Australian journalists have argued. The debate in Australia echoes concerns in the US, where the Chinese government has been accused of seeking to exert control over the academy by funding Confucius Institutes on university campuses.

A member of the Association of Việt Nam’s Universities and Colleges, spoke about the fight against corruption in higher education. The professor questioned how Government officials’ can afford to send their children to study abroad, suggesting greater transparency is needed regarding their assets. He also condemns the practice of giving scholarships to children of high high-ranking Government officials who have not excelled academically, citing it as a sign of corruption.

University officials at Hong Kong Polytechnic University – a publicly funded institution – have been scrambling to explain its use of companies registered in secretive offshore tax havens, after revelations in the Panama Papers that it set up two companies offshore to channel funds. The university, known locally as PolyU, had not declared in any of its financial reports that it set up two companies in the British Virgin Islands in 2012 and 2013 as wholly owned subsidiaries of the university, raising questions about its financial transparency and reporting.

Several universities are being threatened with tough penalties for allegedly providing data that would artificially boost their performance on prestigious research rankings used to allocate government funding. The Australian Research Council has written stern letters to several universities warning them they face punishments for providing misleading data for their research excellence assessments, including prosecution under Commonwealth law.

Education Minister wants to make universities more accountable for how they spend their money after it was revealed billions of dollars a year are redirected from teaching to research. A report by the Grattan Institute found that universities report the $26 billion they spend each year in an "opaque" way, concluding: "Australia needs a more transparent system for reporting how universities spend their money."