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An awareness campaign against widespread corruption in universities, which includes bribery by students to get good results, false diplomas and sex to gain promotion, has been launched by CONAC, the national anti-corruption commission. According to a source “The main kind of corruption here is the sale of grades by certain teachers. Students whose work is bad get teachers or education officials to improve their grades”. CONAC found instances of nepotism, counterfeiting of results, false diplomas, promotions in return for sex, and abuse of power.

The scale of student misconduct in Ukraine has been exposed by a survey of undergraduates that found nearly half have paid bribes and almost all admitted to plagiarism and cheating on exams. Of 600 students surveyed at public universities in Lviv -- a city in the west of Ukraine seen as relatively uncorrupt -- 48 percent had paid bribes. Bribery was far more common for compulsory modules like physical education and workplace safety, and professional programs like business, law and medicine, it found.

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.

The acting rector of one of Ukraine’s flagship technical universities was arrested in his office for taking a bribe of €170,000, which is roughly equivalent to US$200,000. In a country where the average salary is the equivalent of a meagre US$100 a month, this sum sounds astronomical. This is not the first incident where a university rector has been arrested in connection with a bribe. If there were a ranking that rated world higher education institutions based on how corrupt they are, Ukraine’s universities would doubtless take some of the top spots.

The acting rector of National Aviation University of Ukraine, was detained on 26 August on charges of taking a €100,000 (US$112,000) bribe for a job appointment. The accused was reportedly detained by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau detectives and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s office and Security Service officers. The following day, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau reported on its website that during the search in his apartment, detectives found the cash, and also confiscated nine gold bars. In response, the acting rector claims he was set up.

A top Nigerian academic has generated heated debate after publicly criticising the country’s university accreditation agency for lack of autonomy, negligence and double standards in its annual accreditation of courses. All accusations have been denied by the agency. The Professor accused the National Universities Commission, or NUC, of becoming a mouthpiece for government and failing to perform its duties as a regulatory agency created to ensure quality in universities. He accused the NUC of aiding and abetting corruption in its accreditation exercise, and said there were allegations that some people conducting accreditation “receive brown envelopes” – a euphemism for bribes – which also undermined the credibility of NUC accreditation.