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Up to 1000 students at the University of Sydney are in limbo after their final exam was abruptly cancelled on Friday morning due to fears the exam had been compromised. Commerce students sitting their final exam for the compulsory business insights unit had just begun reading the exam paper when they were interrupted by an announcement from the examiner. The university said the replacement exam would have the same structure and weighting as the original exam, and warned "any student found guilty of misconduct risks disciplinary proceedings including expulsion".

Singapore is at far greater risk of academic fraud now, given the increasingly competitive academic environment here.The danger has always been around, but the pressure to "publish or perish" has steadily been increasing in recent years, in the light of the rise of the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in international league tables, such as the closely watched Times Higher Education World University Rankings, over the past few years. A university's research quality and output play a key role in the assessment so academics have a compelling incentive to make a mark.

The crime branch of the Lucknow police busted a fake marksheet racket on Sunday and arrested four persons from a multi-storey complex on Hewett Road. The cops, however, disclosed the information on Monday. The police recovered around 400 fake marksheets, 800 papers used for printing them, rubber stamps of several fake examination boards, three laptops, five scanner-cum-printers, one CPU and 12 paper cutters. The gang was preparing fake marksheets for Class 10, 12 and graduation since 2012 and used to charge Rs 5,000 to 10,000 for each marksheet.

Universities are being urged to block websites that sell essays, identify cheating "hot spots" and consider publishing data on breaches of academic integrity. As universities grapple with a rise in contract cheating – which involves students outsourcing assessments – Australia's higher education watchdog has unveiled new guidelines to tackle the issue. A recent survey by a University of South Australia associate professor who helped create the guidelines, found that 6 per cent of Australian students engaged in cheating.

The Higher Education Ministry of Oman has banned four Malaysian universities due to alleged academic and administrative abuses by the varsities. In total, there are 378 Omani students enrolled in the four universities. The Times of Oman, in its report, stated that the Committee for the Recognition of Non-Omani Higher Education Institutions and the Equivalence of Educational Qualifications in the Oman Higher Education Ministry had issued a decision to stop dealing with these universities. It said Omani students were not allowed to attend the educational institutions following the decision. Representatives from one of the universities claim that the Ministry’s action is ‘unwarranted’.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has released the Draft UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2017. As the name suggests, the aim of the draft is to create academic awareness about responsible conduct of research and prevention of misconduct including plagiarism in academic writing. The draft also seeks to establish institutional mechanism for promotion of academic integrity and develop systems to detect and prevent plagiarism.

With some using unscrupulous ways just to get titles and academic qualifications, the Government is stepping up its efforts to prevent another avenue from being misused – honorary doctorates. The usage of the honorary “Dr” title is limited to within the awarding university, recipients aren’t allowed to put the “Dr” title in front of their names in public. As a reminder to be vigilant about any misrepresentation and use of fraudulent awards, the Higher Education Ministry sent out guidelines in March on the issuance of honorary doctorates.

Leading English academics and former HSC chief examiners have warned that plans to make HSC English exams shorter and put word limits on answers will make it easier for students to game the system and will "further fuel the HSC tutoring industry". The submission warns that the tutoring industry would benefit from the introduction of shorter answers because students would pay to be taught how to "memorise and then reproduce" 600-word responses for their exams.