Ethics is not always dealing with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, but may sometimes be a choice of a lesser of evils, a nuanced decision dealing with trade-offs or viewed as situational. How do we better equip students to better understand ethical dilemmas and how to approach them? EthicalSystems.org, collects and shares research on ethics which spans a wide variety of topics, including accounting, cheating and honesty, contextual influences, corporate culture, corporate governance, corruption, decision-making, leadership and teaching ethics, among others.

Plagiarism has been taboo for some and an open secret for others in Algeria, but is today a scandal that no one can deny – even though Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research officials are trying to minimise the problem. Some flagrant examples of plagiarism have emerged into the public sphere, and they appear to be the tip of the iceberg. The ministry of higher education and scientific research, has adopted series of measures to curb this phenomenon, including instructing all universities to set up databases on their websites in which all works and theses produced by students, lecturers and researchers are reported.

The Sindh Chief Minister told the Sindh assembly that they are taking steps to improve the education sector with emphasis to make exam result system free from corruption. He was responding to a call attention notice of a Pakistan lawmaker who asked why no action was taken by the government after the anti-corruption department raided the education boards in Karachi due to accusation of result tempering and embezzlement of public money.

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.”

It has been argued, that the way to address the problem of unethical student recruitment agencies is to ban them. But are all education agents inherently bad? No. Are there serious issues and potential pitfalls? Absolutely. Although the use of education agents is fraught with potential problems, it is possible to develop ways to address legitimate concerns related to the holy trinity of accountability, integrity and transparency.

The Public Service Recruitment Secretariat has collected a total of 1,008 fake academic certificates from public service job seekers. The Deputy Secretary of the Quality and Control Department said the use of forged certificates is a national crisis since the majority of job seekers use them. "The certificates (1,008 fake academic certificates) were collected within the six years of the Secretariat," he said and commended the government's move to crack down on the rampant use of fake certificates in public service. The people behind the fake certificates were taken on hold and their certificates blacklisted in the public service.

The Department of Basic Education Annual Report tabled in Parliament this week reveals evidence of large-scale corruption in its flagship Kha Ri Gude mass Literacy programme. These revelations have emerged just a few weeks after the Kha Ri Gude programme was awarded the 2016 UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy at an awards ceremony in Paris. The Department’s Annual Report indicates that fruitless and wasteful expenditure increased from R 28 000 in 2014/15 to R 44,3 million this year due to alleged corruption in the Kha Ri Gude adult literacy programme.

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.

Zimbabwe’s Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister is facing a probe over the alleged abuse of approximately US$450,000 meant for students in a development that has seen students calling for him to pay back the money and resign. According to a charge sheet prepared by the anti-graft commission, the minister is alleged to have used part of the money to fund cronies in his constituency as part of a bid to regain his seat in the 2018 general elections. His deputy, is alleged to have formed a company that benefitted from the student funds as universities were directed to buy equipment from his firm.

University students and professors joined thousands of people demonstrating in the South Korean capital Seoul last weekend demanding the resignation of the country’s president over her connections with a close confidante whom many suspect of having undue influence over the way the country is run despite having no official position. Among the allegations is that she influenced the appointment of ministers. But allegations that she also used her influence to get her daughter admitted to Ewha Womans University in Seoul – one of the country’s top universities – led to the resignation of the embattled Ewha Womans University president on 19 October.