Allegations of academic fraud have been made against nearly 20 alternative higher education providers in London in recent months, the head of the UK’s standards watchdog has said. Warning that fraud and malpractice now pose a “real challenge” to traditional quality assurance in higher education, the chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency, said that his organisation had “recently received and, in some cases, investigated allegations about admissions, malpractice, academic fraud and the falsification of evidence in 19 alternative providers in London”.

"There are many of us who walk around with our communication detectors," says the chairman of the Joint Technical Competitions (CCP) – soon to change its name to CCINP for the 2019 session - which is the gateway for dozens of Technical schools, and brings together up to 4,000 exam candidates on a single site. Between digital watches and connected glasses, exam cheating has taken a modern turn, and so has exam surveillance.

A 23-year-old man, residing a stone's throw from Lyon, was arrested on Tuesday morning, 3 October, for trying to fool the higher education scholarship system. During the 2016-2017 school year, the young man had received government money based on the establishment he claimed to be attending the conditions he had declared. The problem was that the student had falsified his university registration document, and Crous, which manages student grants, came to realize it.

Since his election in 2004, the Georgian president has set about reforming the endemically corrupt university system through drastic, but effective, measures. Reforms targeted both the admissions process as well as the quality of higher education itself.

The last time Ukrainian cities faced occupation and artillery bombing was during World War II. That was until this spring, when Russia annexed Crimea and started to supply rebels who have occupied large cities in the East of Ukraine. This has changed everyday life for millions of Ukrainian citizens, among them thousands of school-leavers who want to enter university.