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A number of students in a law school were caught cheating in exams; one student was found writing answers already copied in a smart watch. The student either programmed answer sheets or recorded course materials into the device. One practicing lawyer in Abuja said such attitude may have long-term effects on those involved; it had undermined the integrity and independence of the graduands and could possibly increase the likelihood of the abuse of the attorney-client privilege as well as create weak industry-wide anti-corruption standards.

Two years ago, a Polish economist leading a private university in Warsaw, was contacted by headhunters from Moscow. They had spotted his profile on LinkedIn and wanted a Russian-speaking European university leader to reform the prominent Narxoz University in Almaty, a city in the far east of vast Kazakhstan, a few hours’ drive from the borders of north-western China. Sixteen months into his job as rector, he told Times Higher Education about his efforts to root out cheating, plagiarism, corruption and staid teaching, which have led to the firing of hundreds of academics.

In Algeria the gendarmerie carried out ‘tens of arrests’ for fraud by officials, teachers and heads of some exam centres. Papers had been leaked via social networks, through more than 150 Facebook accounts, which had enabled the police to identify and arrest perpetrators. Meanwhile, 53 people have been arrested in a number of towns in Morocco for their alleged involvement in baccalauréat fraud. The arrests concerned 22 administrators of social network chat pages and sites for facilitating exam paper leaks and answers in return for money

In the season of examination results and college admissions, we are again reminded of the dismal condition of the Indian education system. The Punjab School Education Board has, in an act of benevolence, granted 30 grace marks to Class 12 students. This helped lift the state’s pass percentage from 54% to 76%. In Gujarat, the pass percentage in Class 10 dropped from 73% in 2014-15 to 63% this year — which the state education minister attributes to the installation of CCTV cameras in examination centres that have checked cheating. Many Class 10 students in Gujarat could not answer elementary questions in a retest, despite securing over 80% in the objective section of the mathematics paper.

Cheating by students who use essay mills is “virtually undetectable”, according to a study that found that many ghost-written papers would receive good marks if they were submitted. An associate lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales, conducted an experiment in which she ordered essays from 13 ghostwriting websites and then had them graded by leading academics who believed that they were looking at genuine student submissions. The results were “alarming”, with the quality of purchased essays being “higher than expected”; The use of essay mills might therefore be “much, much higher” than previously thought.

Ethiopia’s government has blocked access to social networks throughout the country, an unprecedented measure it has justified by the need to prevent fraud during the period of university exams. But internet users have suggested the government is experimenting with new software filters to cut off political protesters. From 9 to 13 July it was impossible to log on to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in Ethiopia, to prevent leaks of subjects that had forced cancellation of exams in June.