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A senior US official has called for independent verification of Afghan government figures on the use of US education aid following claims by Afghan ministers that the previous government had provided data on US-funded school and higher education projects that were flawed, tempered and exaggerated, and had interfered with university entrance exams. These allegations suggest the existence of ghost schools and teachers that are being paid for with US aid money.

Macquarie University has revoked the degrees of two students and prevented a further 10 from graduating after an independent investigation revealed the students used an online ghost-writing service to complete their assignments. The Northern Sydney University is the latest institution to finalise its internal investigations into the MyMaster cheating racket, in which up to 1,000 students from 16 universities hired the online company MyMaster to write their assignments and sit for online tests.

At the helm of the company embroiled in a large-scale academic cheating scandal is a Chinese-born businesswoman. The enterprising 30-year-old has used her accounting degree to build a lucrative ghostwriting service, called MyMaster. This pitch has seen the MyMaster company turn over at least $160,000 during 2014 and return more than 900 fraudulent assignments to students prepared to hand over up to $1,000 for the work.

Jakarta's Pramuka Street intersection is well known for its essay-production services, as Indonesian universities continue to be dogged by the problem of ghostwritten essays. By paying a sum, a student can graduate without making much effort writing the final-year dissertation.

A new Ministry of Education regulation to punish academic fraud has come into effect to clamp down on plagiarism and fabricating research data, as well as buying, selling or organizing trade in academic degree theses, including all forms of "ghostwriting" or buying of materials produced by essay mills.

Strong demand for ghost-written academic papers in the lead-up to university graduation and revelations that people pay to have scholarly articles published are worrying critics who fear the billion-yen industry is making it harder than ever to evaluate graduates' abilities.