In the media

A Chinese university president was sentenced a lifetime in jail for taking bribes and embezzlement in a court in Southeast Jianxi Province on Tuesday, according to Xinhua. So far this year, 32 university officials have been accused of taking bribes or other. In November, eight school leaders, including the president of the elite Communication University of China in Beijing were removed from their jobs for corruption.

A report by the Joint Legislative Public Account Committee (PAC) has linked a former Minister of Education and his deputy to misapplication of US$60,493 during their tenure at the Ministry of Education. The money, according to the report, was intended for the Government of Liberia Free and Compulsory Primary Education program.

The SA Democratic Teachers Union came out strongly against the basic education department on Sunday, accusing senior officials of being involved in a jobs-for-cash syndicate and claiming that high ranking officials in the education department had either accepted bribes or used undue influence to appoint teachers and principals. But this allegation was rejected by an education spokesperson.

The EFF calls on the Basic Education minister to take decisive action against members of SADTU and other officials of the department who have been given jobs through illegal means. The Minister has announced that the department welcomed a report by its investigative task team which found that of a "total of 75 cases" it dealt with, 30 provided "grounds for reasonable suspicion or wrongdoing".

The Basic Education Minister delivered a statement regarding the investigation into allegations of selling of posts for teachers following the release of preliminary report by her Task Team on the work done thus far. According to the minister the report, though not yet complete, has uncovered some very concerning tendencies that are being perpetuated in the appointment of teachers and principals. The full details of the report will be released at a later stage.

The SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) was fingered as the main culprit in a damning report into the alleged selling of teachers' posts released on Thursday. According to a report by the Basic Education Minister’s task team, government systems have allowed an exploitation of the system, which compromised proper appointments of critical educator posts.

The minister for education and science is attempting to implement widespread reforms in a country where establishing university autonomy requires dismantling the legacy of Soviet-era state control, where raising quality requires overcoming widespread corruption and where conflict has uprooted 28 institutions.

Allegations of corruption and immorality within the Congolese university community have been aired in a new book by a former education minister and current professor of languages at the University of Kinshasa. He proposed lowering student numbers to a controllable level to guarantee efficiency during examinations and academic deliberations.

Ukraine has little to offer international students. The quality of education offered is low, there is endless red tape and corruption is rife. Over the past quarter century, the quality of education offered has dropped dramatically due not only to a lack of state funding and a consequent brain drain, but primarily to rampant endemic corruption. Failed structural reforms and institutional incapacity in higher education have left Ukrainian youth without any hope of receiving world-class education and have had a negative impact on international students as well.

Many instances were witnessed across the country, where parents arrived at schools to return free uniform material vouchers which were invalid. There were also instances where parents complained of the insufficient value attached to these vouchers, and where parents were unable to purchase quality material for a specified price. Against this backdrop, several teachers and principals’ associations staged a joint media briefing in Colombo, highlighting the fact that teachers, students and parents, have been inconvenienced by the new voucher system.