In South Africa, an incident at a school in Soweto revived the debate over false teacher qualifications. This week, a former primary school teacher stabbed a director who had suspended him. The teacher was dismissed after the school discovered, following a complaint from parents, that he had lied about his qualifications and had no diploma. According to the South African Council of Educators, dozens or even hundreds of teachers lie about their qualifications.

A major Chinese education company has paid thousands of dollars in perks or cash to admissions officers at top U.S. universities to help students apply to American schools. According to eight former employees the company’s services didn’t end there. Employees engaged in practices such as writing application essays for students, altering recommendation letters and modifying grades on high school transcripts. The company’s success in gaining access to leading American colleges underscores how people on both sides of the Pacific are hungry to capitalize on Chinese students’ desire to study in the United States.

A professor in political economy at the world’s oldest university has more or less invited his students to copy. It is his way of speaking out against the impunity of certain of his colleagues accused of plagiarism. He announced “I will not be checking to see if you have copied your work as I cannot, in good conscience, ask you to respect rules that the University of Bologna allows it’s professors to violate.”

US public universities recorded about five cases of alleged cheating for every 100 foreign students, and only one for every 100 domestic students, in the 2014-15 academic year. In the United Kingdom students from overseas – from outside the European Union – are more than four times as likely to cheat. Many of these cheating students come from countries with endemic corruption or with significantly different academic cultures and standards. Universities should acknowledge this problem and allocate all necessary resources to mitigate academic misconduct involving students.

Students have “no understanding” of what plagiarism is and why they must avoid it, according to new research. An education research fellow at the University of Otago, finds that universities might need to consider their plagiarism policies and how they might “influence or confuse students in counterproductive ways”. The qualitative study, published in the journal Higher Education, found that although “aware of plagiarism as a concept” and believing that those who “intentionally cheat are cheating everybody”, students were ignorant of the potential implications of unintentional plagiarism.

In December 2015, a prominent member of Russia’s ruling party was accused of plagiarising a large portion of his economic dissertation. But the strangest thing about the alleged plagiarism is not the accused’s lack of defence—it's that the Russian public didn't really seem to care. In fact, the Chairman of the State is one of more than 1,000 high achieving Russians who have been caught plagiarising. The accused include politicians, judges, prosecutors, police officials and even heads of universities.

Two years ago, a Polish economist leading a private university in Warsaw, was contacted by headhunters from Moscow. They had spotted his profile on LinkedIn and wanted a Russian-speaking European university leader to reform the prominent Narxoz University in Almaty, a city in the far east of vast Kazakhstan, a few hours’ drive from the borders of north-western China. Sixteen months into his job as rector, he told Times Higher Education about his efforts to root out cheating, plagiarism, corruption and staid teaching, which have led to the firing of hundreds of academics.

Political interference in Africa’s universities is not new. Universities’ governance was seen as ‘captured’ for narrow political rather than academic ends during the 1980s and 1990s. The continent’s universities started changing from the middle of the 1990s. Strong governance structures were prioritised. Governments promised to help steady institutions so they could focus on their academic missions. But studies funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and conducted by CODESRIA, suggest that not much has changed. The same tensions and crises associated with the old political order – student disturbances, harassment of academic staff and widespread academic corruption – persist.

At least three students have been caught by Rangsit University staff in Bangkok overseeing an exam. As a result, the university has called for a change in the law to prosecute students who cheat and criminals who assist them. Officials say they are part of a group that charges students thousands of dollars for exam answers. 

Most students are happy to work hard, try their best and accept the consequences. But there are a host of commercial essay writers who are prepared to help those who can't be bothered. Universities have responded to the threat by trying to change the way they assess students. Increasingly students are being asked to orally present their work in front of a seminar group, or to answer questions from lecturers.