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Despite the promises of great reforms in education made by the new President, the Soviet system is still running. Many allege that the bureaucrats involved in the renovations of schools frequently sign dual contracts with foreign construction companies, deliberately designed to allow a huge portion of the reported contract costs to disappear. Moreover, bribes are still viewed as a secondary prerequisite for university admission after one's scores on standardized entrance examinations.

"Degree mills" are impeding the efforts to assure quality in higher education—a significant national issue for some time and now an international concern. In response, the US-based Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) recently joined with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to bring together an informal group of higher education and quality assurance/accreditation leaders to focus on degree mills. Issues on the traits and the perils of degree mills, and on the national and international policies to curb that phenomenon will be discussed.

In 2002, the Liberian embassy's deputy chief of mission began his fraudulent transactions with American owners of St Regis diploma mill. They agreed to sell Liberian university accreditation to "St Regis University" for $2,250. They then decide to create two other diploma mills: Robertstown and James Monroe. By the end of 2003, Liberian officials under their sway included senior diplomats in at least two embassies, a minister of justice, a foreign minister, two successive directors of Liberia's National Commission for Higher Education, and a number of other diplomats and government officials, including several at the Ministry of Education. The United States Secret Service finally unveiled their embezzlement.

From 1995 to 2001, Nigerian degree mills produced annually about 15 percent of total university graduates in the country. In the past 9 years, a flurry of activity has been directed at eradicating the degree mills. In 1999, the National Council on Education (NUC) directed the closure of all local and foreign satellite campuses. It also partnered with the Department of State Services (Nigeria's secret service) in locating, arresting, and prosecuting operators of unapproved universities and satellite campuses. Finally, it directed approved universities to make full disclosure of their programs, which have been listed in the Directory of Approved Programmes in the Nigerian University System.

The Education Amendment Bill proposes the creation of an information matching programme which will allow the identification of teachers who are teaching without a current practicing certificate or authorization. In addition the Bill provides greater clarity to school boards of trustees on their roles, and increases flexibility around timing of board elections, the establishment of boards and alternative board constitutions.

Last week, the National Universities Commission (NUC) announced the existence of 33 illegal universities in the country. In May, the NUC had earlier declared that sixteen out of these institutions were illegal and warned Nigerians against patronizing them. Also declared illegal were unlicensed satellite campuses, outreach campuses and study centers countrywide. The universities' regulatory body also stated that it had not approved any offshore universities to operate in the country. The Commission said that five owners of such institutions had been arrested and were being prosecuted to dissuade others.

Although the post-conflict period ended officially in 2006, the Ministry of Education is still not able to effectively monitor teaching and learning processes nationwide. The system records teachers who do not physically exist, teachers that do not teach (´ghost teachers`), and teachers receiving salaries from several schools. In mid-2006, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) placed two experts in the Planning Directorate of the Education Ministry in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, to set up an Education Management Information System (EMIS). This article summarizes the results of their investigations.

Since taking over the Kremlin last month, President Medvedev, has made it a priority to combat what he calls "legal nihilism" in Russia. A campaign has begun to clean the courts of bribe-taking judges and letters from members of the public, complaining about corruption, have been published on the Kremlin website. Reporting on the results at St. Petersburg, the daily Kommersant said that 83 out of 200 students in the law faculty had failed their state examinations. Some who had received grade 2, the lowest mark, had been expecting to leave with "red diplomas" or distinctions. Among those who failed were students who had paid fees.