Search Page

Pusan National University announced the decision to revoke the 2015 admission of the former justice minister’s daughter to its medical school because her parents doctored her credentials. The admission regulations stipulate that applicants cannot be admitted if their documentation is false, and it can be cancelled even decades after graduation if fraud is discovered.

Examination fraud remains the main challenge for the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), especially amongst parents who constantly ask for their children to receive favorable treatment, regardless of whether they meet requirements. JAMB is also fighting corruption in higher education institutions that admit students outside of the guidelines of the Ministry of Education.

In spite of ongoing accusations of academic fraud and financial crimes against his family, a former law professor was nominated as the new justice minister. His wife, also a professor, was accused of allegedly falsifying material that would have helped their daughter enter university and obtain scholarships. In a protest against the government, opposition leaders shave their heads.

A Stanford sailing team leader was sentenced to two years probation for facilitating the admission of students to the university. He received $610,000 in exchange for recommendations for high school students he allegedly claimed to have recruited for his teams. In order to get their daughter admitted to Stanford, a Chinese family also paid $6.5 million to this official.

Anti-corruption advocacy group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sued Delta State governor over poor funding of primary education in his state. His administration has received N7.8bn from Universal Basic Education Commission, apart from other funds from the Federal Government. Around 1,124 primary schools across the state are in a shambles, with very poor teaching facilities. Moreover, SERAP pointed out the case of a student who was sent home because her parents could not afford the illegal school fee of N900.

Most Vietnamese parents and students work with education agents when applying to the US and other foreign colleges and universities. The challenge for families is that these education agents charge exorbitant fees and misrepresent partner schools. They convince their clients of the need to ‘enhance’ an application using fraudulent documents, such as altered or fake transcripts and adviser-written statements of purpose.

Following a high-level meeting last Friday, top officers from the police service, the Ministry of Education and the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) will be dispatched to six parts of the country to investigate reports of plans to cheat in the forthcoming national examinations. The chairman of KNEC warned principals against collecting money from parents to buy fake examination materials for their candidates.

Some 82 cases of professors listing their secondary school offspring as co-authors in academic papers have been unearthed by an investigation by South Korea’s ministry of education. According to a Korea Herald Editorial, “It is obvious why the professors included the names of their children in the papers. The merit of being co-authors of research papers gives them a good advantage in seeking to enter universities through special admissions programmes”. The discovery could lead to disciplinary action in some cases, under Korea’s strict research misconduct laws which cover author attribution of research papers.