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An awareness campaign against widespread corruption in universities, which includes bribery by students to get good results, false diplomas and sex to gain promotion, has been launched by CONAC, the national anti-corruption commission. According to a source “The main kind of corruption here is the sale of grades by certain teachers. Students whose work is bad get teachers or education officials to improve their grades”. CONAC found instances of nepotism, counterfeiting of results, false diplomas, promotions in return for sex, and abuse of power.

Students of different public and private education institutions painted the external wall of the Government Emerson College in connection with National Accountability Bureau’s ongoing awareness campaign against corruption here on Thursday. The two weeks campaign began on November 27 and would culminate on December 12. NAB Director termed the youth a frontline force to end corruption and appreciated their efforts.

Universities in China and elsewhere in Asia are belatedly joining global alliances to promote ethical practices in artificial intelligence or AI, which were previously being studied in university research centres in a fragmented way. Crucially there are still no international guidelines and standards in place for ethical research, design and use of AI and automated systems. China’s universities in particular are turning out a large number of researchers specialising in AI who are now opting to stay in the country to work for home-grown technology giants such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu – companies which gather and use huge amounts of consumer data with few legal limits.

Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, or JAMB, is the latest agency to come under the spotlight in what is a national crusade to get rid of corruption in higher education. Past registrars of the agency, which is mandated to hold entrance examinations for all students into tertiary institutions, have been asked to give an account of their stewardship and how they managed the agency’s finances. The probe comes in the wake of revelations that JAMB has managed to remit to the Central Bank of Nigeria an impressive total of US$14 million – the highest annual remittance in the last 40 years.

Member of the committee on education and scientific research of the House of Representatives called for installing cameras in all examination halls at Egyptian universities to prevent cheating and lack of discipline. He will send the proposal to the Ministry of Higher Education as cameras will prevent and detect the growing incidents of mass copying by students and reveal any problem that would happen between students and monitors in the exam. This move is part of Egypt’s efforts to enhance the quality of the country’s university education and to deter churning out low quality graduates especially since the country’s examination system has been plagued by cheating over the recent years especially in high schools.

Up to 1000 students at the University of Sydney are in limbo after their final exam was abruptly cancelled on Friday morning due to fears the exam had been compromised. Commerce students sitting their final exam for the compulsory business insights unit had just begun reading the exam paper when they were interrupted by an announcement from the examiner. The university said the replacement exam would have the same structure and weighting as the original exam, and warned "any student found guilty of misconduct risks disciplinary proceedings including expulsion".

Sexual harassment in universities is to be investigated by the National Union of Students, which is conducting the UK’s first survey of staff sexual misconduct in higher education. Students will be asked whether they have experienced or witnessed sexual misconduct by staff and about their experience of reporting this behaviour to their institution. The research project is being carried out by the NUS women’s campaign. Researchers will consider professional boundaries and examine what types of behaviour students are comfortable dealing with from higher education staff.

The executive director of National Council for Higher Education (NHCE) noted that a number people including public servants have been rushing to obtain academic certificates without even attending classes. He warned that universities found issuing such certificates risk having their charters and letters of interim authorities withdrawn. He added that the council was keen to ensure the 'fake' degrees' rush stops in efforts to streamline higher education in Uganda. He also expressed concern over cases of university students missing their marks, thus denying them the opportunity to graduate in time.

Singapore is at far greater risk of academic fraud now, given the increasingly competitive academic environment here.The danger has always been around, but the pressure to "publish or perish" has steadily been increasing in recent years, in the light of the rise of the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in international league tables, such as the closely watched Times Higher Education World University Rankings, over the past few years. A university's research quality and output play a key role in the assessment so academics have a compelling incentive to make a mark.