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The issue of quality assurance in the tertiary education system has become a public concern as a consequence of the scandal in which the president of the National Accreditation Commission and at least two chancellors of private universities were arrested and accused of money laundering, bribery and accepting kickbacks.

Turkey has suspended its recognition of Bulgarian university diplomas. The Turkish University Education Council made this decision on the grounds of high levels of academic forgery, fraud and exam cheating in Bulgaria. Bulgaria's Education Minister has admonished the Bulgarian media for provoking an international scandal, claiming that the problematic diplomas were forged by Turkish citizens.

The Italian cabinet has ordered the roll-out of a national accreditation scheme for academics to stamp out nepotism. Under the new scheme, commissions of five senior academics appointed in each university will accredit applicants for associate or full professorships on the basis of the quality and quantity of their academic output.

India's education ministry appears to have hit a snag in its anticorruption campaign. The Supreme Court ordered the federal government to conduct a review of 44 "deemed universities" that the ministry had stripped of university status last February.

In 2002, the Liberian embassy's deputy chief of mission began his fraudulent transactions with American owners of St Regis diploma mill. They agreed to sell Liberian university accreditation to "St Regis University" for $2,250. They then decide to create two other diploma mills: Robertstown and James Monroe. By the end of 2003, Liberian officials under their sway included senior diplomats in at least two embassies, a minister of justice, a foreign minister, two successive directors of Liberia's National Commission for Higher Education, and a number of other diplomats and government officials, including several at the Ministry of Education. The United States Secret Service finally unveiled their embezzlement.