Academic fraud and plagiarism in higher-learning institutes in
China will come under the scrutiny of a special commission set up
following several recent scandals, the Ministry of Education
announced Thursday.
The commission is responsible for setting down guidelines for
colleges and universities to curb academic fraud, specify
punishments for those involved and draw on experiences of other
countries, explained the commission's director Zhang Qizhi.
"The commission, however, will function mainly as consultative
and directive body under the Ministry," Yuan Zhenguo, deputy
director with the Ministry's social science department, told a
press conference.
Academic fraud was spotlighted with the exposure of several
scandals in China's top universities in the past months. This also
aroused public concern about the supervision of academics in
institutes of higher learning.?
Earlier this month, Chen Jin, a dean at Shanghai Jiaotong
University, was fired for his faked, state funded research, on the
Hanxin digital signal processing chip.?
In late April, Yang Jie, former director of the Life Science and
Technology Institute, was sacked from the prestigious Tongji
University in Shanghai after a forgery was discovered within his
academic record.
Liu Hui, a professor at Beijing-based Tsinghua University, was
removed from his post in March for faking his academic achievements
and work experience.
(Xinhua News Agency May 26, 2006)