BERLIN (AP):Germany's education minister resigned yesterday after a university decided to withdraw her doctorate, finding that she plagiarised parts of her thesis - an embarrassment for Chancellor Angela Merkel's government as it prepares for elections later this year.

Merkel said she had accepted "only with a very heavy heart" the resignation of Annette Schavan, who has been her education and research minister since 2005 and was considered close to the chancellor.

On Tuesday, an academic panel at Duesseldorf's Heinrich Heine University voted to revoke Schavan's doctorate following a review of her 1980 thesis, which dealt with the formation of conscience.