Scientific Reports retracts an article from Chinese scholars due to suspected plagiarism (photo: screenshot of Scientific Reports website)

Thesis fraud will be included into credit records in China to crack down on academic misconduct and cultivate high-quality talents, according to a talent cultivation campaign launched Tuesday by the Chinese Ministry of Education (MOE).

In the 70 years after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, more than 10 million postgraduates have graduated from Chinese universities. This year, 3 million postgraduates are studying on Chinese campuses, Hong Dayong, a MOE official in charge of postgraduate management, said Tuesday.

However, problems including loose school management and degree fraud still exist, Hong noted. To crack down these problems, MOE will include thesis fraud behaviors into students' credit records and enhance punishment mechanism on academic misconduct. 

The move came amid media reports alleging that China has the highest withdraw rate of papers on the Science Citation Index (SCI) this year as more than 10,000 papers by Chinese authors were withdrawn as of July, accounting for 44 percent of globally withdrawn papers, followed by the US with a little more than 4,000. 

Chinese colleges have been getting stricter on paper review for postgraduates since 2019 after Zhai Tianlin, a Chinese actor, was revealed of thesis plagiarism to get his doctoral degree from Beijing Film Academy. 

Zhao's doctoral degree was withdrawn after investigation and his admission to the Peking University's Guanghua School of Management was also revoked.

His PhD supervisor Chen Yi was also disqualified for failing to fulfill responsibilities to direct students or review students' papers. 

According to the MOE, guidance for postgraduate supervisors would come soon. 

Global Times