A world-renowned expert on the reduction of risks involved in heart surgery has been dismissed from Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, after violation of academic integrity. In one study it was found that he used patient data without permission, used fictitious data, and that two reports were submitted to conferences which included knowingly unreliable data.

Weeks after Germany's defense minister was forced to resign in a plagiarism scandal, three German universities say they are investigating similar complaints about the academic work of three figures from the country's political sphere.

The National Council for Teacher Education has drafted a professional code for school teachers that aims to restore "dignity and integrity" to the vocation of teaching. Everyone would agree that the vocation needs more respect than it receives now, but enforcing ethics must come after and not before dealing with the many and deep-rooted ills that plague school education in the country.

As Pakistan's Election Commission began its first hearings into parliamentarians' fake degrees last week some feared the scandal had been pushed out of the limelight by the devastating floods. Nonetheless, the degree debacle is straining the credibility of the country's higher education and election systems.