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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 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.”

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.

When the Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) released the exam timetables on Monday, it also addressed a troubling question: how to stem the rampant examination malpractices. In a statement, Uneb urged all candidates to report directly to the board any invigilator, teacher or head teacher and other candidates involved in examination malpractice. The Uneb executive secretary stated that “The board reserves the right to declare publicly names of centres, candidates or anyone else who will have involved themselves in examination malpractice”.

When the Ministry of Education in 2014 introduced its strict “no cheating” policy for school leavers, many of those who had cheated their way through in previous years surely breathed a sigh of relief. The ministry has been applauded for its tough stance; after all, there’s little point in an education system in which you can cheat your way to top grades. The problem is that, although getting into university is harder, getting through university hasn’t changed much at all. Once you’re in – depending on the institution – the chances to cheat are as widespread as ever. And that means at least some of the 250,000 students in higher education don’t have to learn in order to graduate.

The higher education and research minister has warned new students to make sure they enrol in higher education institutions that are authorised and accredited by the state. During the past few years many new private institutions had opened as the numbers of young people qualified to enter higher education increased but places in public universities remained low. She stressed that “the ministry refuses to ratify or recognise the diplomas of institutions without authorisation.”

A Melbourne start-up has created anti-plagiarism software which is being trialled at four major Australian universities. It's called Cadmus and it tracks students as they complete assignments. The editing and authentication software – which operates like a Google document and can be accessed anywhere – uses keystroke analytics to build up a profile of a student's typing style. This allows it to detect when someone else is dishonestly involved in their work.

More than 30 fake universities have been shut down by the Government following a crackdown on worthless degrees, after a website in China was found selling degree certificates from dozens of UK universities for £500 each. However, the UK is powerless to act against roughly 80 per cent of offenders because they are based outside the country and cannot be prosecuted, according to Prospects, the graduate careers expert. As the project starts its second year, it will focus on dealing with offenders at a local level through international collaboration with the equivalent authorities overseas, HEDD said.