[General] "any countries' " or "any country's"

[Olympian]

Hello,

In the article called "Behind the fancy foreign diplomas", I came across this sentence:

Diploma mills are legally registered institutes but are not acknowledged by any countries' ministry of educations or professional diploma verification groups, added Sang.


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Is this correct? Or should it be -

any country's ministry of education
​

My understanding is that 'any' means 'any one/particular' country, so it should not be 'countries' and also it should be 'ministry of education'. But I want to ask the teachers because this is somewhat confusing.

It is interesting to read in the article that the former president of Microsoft China had a fake PhD. ;-)

Thank you.

 

[Rover_KE]

... should it be -

any country's ministry of education?

Yes - it should.

Rover

 

[Verona_82]

Hmmm. What about the following sentence? Is is technically correct?

Diploma mills are legally registered institutes but are not acknowledged by any countries' ministries of education

I've been taught 'any' with the meaning 'not matter which' can go with countable singular and plural nouns.

 

[Barb_D]

I can't make that sentence work in the plural.

 

[Olympian]

Thank you RoverKE.