Admissions, courses, grades and diplomas are for sale in high profile higher institutions. Admissions officers offer expensive private lessons. Reforms should include an accreditation system, an entrance exam and an increase in financing.

As part of its campaign to end corruption in education, a militant group in north eastern India is trying to force professors to conduct courses in their classrooms instead of at private tutoring sessions.

Cairo University, Egypt’s biggest state-run academic institution, has initiated an action plan against thriving but unlawful ‘teaching centres’ in its vicinity, accusing them of “undermining the educational process”. The centres, located just outside campus, are accused of pirating academic books, producing sub-standard study guides and holding fee-charging crash courses for students. Academics, whose books have allegedly been pirated by the centres, say their complaints to law-enforcement authorities have not drawn a response.