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In an interview with a local daily newspaper, Malaysia’s Education Minister said that efforts are underway to do a large-scale change in the world of academia. A review of the Statuary Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act 605 to exclude academics from several rules governing civil servants will be carried out. This involves issues of academic freedom, integrity, plagiarism, and others.

The number of students disciplined for academic misconduct at the University of Auckland rose to 195 last year, from 187 the year before. Cheating incidents reported have highlighted concerns about the reuse of assignments and the fact that ghostwriters undermine school integrity. According to the Tertiary Education Union president, university bosses should support teaching staff to implement the best anti-cheating measures such as changing assignments frequently and requiring students to submit their work through detection service Turnitin.

According to a professor from the National Universities Commission, 60% of essays by final-year undergraduates contained plagiarism, at masters’ level it was between 15-20% and at PhD level about 8% contained plagiarism. The vice-chancellor of Delta State University announced that in an attempt to instill academic discipline and honesty, the institution had sanctioned more than 15 lecturers for various forms of publication-related plagiarism. According to a source at the university, such sanctions involved demotions and no promotions for periods between three and five years.

Kazakhstan’s anti-corruption strategies are showing early signs of progress, a top official at the country’s Agency for Civil Service Affairs and Fighting Corruption said. Among the cited projects was Sanaly Urpak (Conscious Generation), established in Almaty, which seeks to minimise corruption in the education system. The project has developed an optimal solution for curbing corruption at the secondary and higher education level, as well as disseminating the academic honesty principle. University academic integrity and cohesion ratings will be issued annually based on project estimates.