A well-known obesity researcher will plead guilty to making material false statements in a 1999 grant application worth $542,000 from the US National Institutes of Health. The researcher, who held various research positions at the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine in Burlington could go to jail for up to 5 years.

The Department of Education has launched a website which features a list of 6,900 academic institutions accredited by an accrediting agency or state approval agency. The website is designed to help employers distinguish between accredited institutions of higher education and unaccredited institutions commonly as "diploma mills" that offer bogus degrees.

The U.S. Department of Justice may be breathing new life into a whistle-blower lawsuit that seeks to collect about $1billion from the University of Phoenix, the nation's largest private institution of higher education. The suit was dismissed in May by a federal district-court judge in California on technical grounds but the parties appealed.

A federal grand jury in Kansas indicted a former college-basketball coach last month on charges that he arranged for his players to receive phony academic credit and stole $120,000 in Pell Grants. The former coach faces a total of 51 years in prison and over $1.5-million in fines if found guilty of all counts.

The Canadian value most under threat is freedom from corruption, claims the industry sector. The 2005 Transparency International survey shows that Canada has slipped to 14th among countries perceived as free of corruption, down from its traditional top-10 placing.

An auditor has been charged for having changed business records in an effort to help conceal the theft of more than $11 million. The district superintendent is accused of stealing more than $2 million; the assistant superintendent for $4 million and a former school accounting clerk for $780,000. Money shall have been used on artwork, jewellery, foreign trips and home mortgages. The scandal that has resulted in a state-wide changes in the way school finances are audited.

Oregon lawmakers have passed a bill requiring those seeking employment in the state to add a disclaimer on their résumé to any qualifications not issued by an institution of higher education accredited by a state recognized accrediting agency. This is part of an on-going struggle by state legislators against institutions of education where academic standards are insufficient or non-existent. The Office of Degree Authorization lists on its Web site more than 300 institutions which is not recognized.

Compton community college lost its accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges in June. The regional accrediting body cited poor governance, lack of education plans, lack of student support services, and an inadequate administrative staff as reasons for revoking the schools accreditation. The school is now being taken over by the state, despite California's highly decentralized system.

According to investigations conducted in Nicaragua, among the 3 500 teachers from autonomous colleges who actually collect a salary on a monthly basis, in reality only 1 945 of them are actually teaching. At least 555 individual salaries are therefore paid to fictitious teachers or to individuals falsely (fraudulently) using the names of teachers.

Honduras invests large sums in education, but powerful teachers' unions and political appointments hinder reforms in a sector vulnerable to corruption and lacking of civil society monitoring. There are 50,000 teachers in the country; between 2,500 and 6,000 of them have pending issues about their posts (such as irregular paid leaves or unjustified absence while still on the payroll). For current decentralization plans to impact positively on education services, local auditing skills need to be improved, parents must be given a bigger role, and unions must adhere to codes of conduct.