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)