The West African Examinations Council says it has not recorded any case of examination leakage in five years. It also denied knowledge of the existence of "special exam centers". The centers were allegedly created by some principals and secondary school proprietors for their candidates who are compelled to pay fees higher than the official fees charged by WAEC. The money is reportedly used for lobbying officials of the council to release the examination question papers to the centers ahead of the official time of the examination.

A pilot program 'Fighting against corruption through schools' will teach students and parents to identify and act against dishonesty in their schools and the rest of society. Most civil servants in Cameroon, including teachers, earn low salaries and rely on bribes to feed their families.

While the liberal studies subject will be introduced in senior secondary education in 2009, the ICAC has launched Hong Kong's first audio-visual liberal studies teaching package to promote moral education among secondary school students.

According to an opposition leader, the businessman Agarwal's pledge last week of $1-billion to set up Vedanta University, in the South Indian state of Orissa, is a gimmick to divert attention from his corrupt mining deal with the state's government. The $1-billion pledge, which if realized would be the largest gift ever made to a higher-education institution, is intended to create a multidisciplinary elite university for 100,000 students that would open in 2008.

Poor performance in the 2004 Primary leaving Examinations has been blamed on the many teachers who used fake academic documents and poor sanitation in numerous schools. Of the 5,655 pupils who sat for PLE last year, only 90 passed in grade one, while 3,892 failed.

The government urges that exam papers should be scanned by specialist computer software as part of a crackdown on internet plagiarism by A-level and GSCE pupils in their compulsory coursework. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority warns that exam boards appear to be failing to spot cheating, even though the number of cases of fraud is increasing. Last year 3,600 teenagers were caught breaching the rules, a 9 % rise on the previous year.

Unemployed teenagers are being offered £ 170 iPods to take part in a course aimed at helping them to find work. The free iPod is subject to completion of the course, which offers team-building activities, CV writing, work experience and community projects. Critics say that handing out the digital music players to teenagers amounts to bribery. It's giving the wrong message about the value of education. It tells teenagers they don't have to do anything unless they are getting a sweetener.

Exam boards report a sharp rise in teenagers caught cheating in public exams. More than 2,500 lost marks for breaking the rules in last year's GCSEs and A-levels - a 9% increase on 2003. More than 900 pupils were caught cheating or plagiarising their coursework. In total, 1,013 penalties were triggered by inappropriate use of mobile phones - 16% up on the same time last year.

More and more students are plagiarising material - and buying essays online. According to one of several companies that trade in "off-the-peg" and custom-written academic work, they sell between 500 and 1,000 essays a week, mainly to overseas students studying in the UK. Prices start at £50.

Popular web-based auction sites such as eBay could be contributing to the spiralling number of plagiarism cases occurring at British universities. Increasing numbers of students are turning to commercial sales sites to both buy and sell dissertations and essays on the web. Powerpoint presentations and slides have emerged as the newest form of work to attract buyers on the internet.