In the media

Investigations have been launched at the Ministry of Education after an audit revealed that the payroll system has been used illegally to increase the salaries of two employees. The first one, working in administrative affairs, received a bonus on her salary of 1,500 dinars per month from April 2019 to April 2020, and the second employee working in the private education department received a bonus of 800 dinars on her monthly salary from September 2019 to May 2020.

The Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) detected embezzled amount of Rs19.4 million from just 24 Iqra Farogh-e-Taleem Voucher Scheme (IFTVS) schools in Mansehra instead of the 89 schools registered by the KP government. The Provincial Bureau of Statistics (BOS) survey identified 23,071 out of schoolchildren for their enrolment in district Mansehra. However, the PIT inquiry found, “the data collected by BOS was erroneous as per 100% validation by district programme officer only 4,183 students were physically available, whereas the PIT also found a huge variation in the data.”

Sindh Anti-Corruption Establishment has found corruption and misuse of authority in Sindh Education Department district Jacobabad involving illegal inducting of hundreds of fake teachers, getting illegal financial benefits in the name of fake employees’ retirement, pension and death claims from department and life insurance company. The investigation continues after the fraud of millions of rupees has been reported, as well as the illegal role and abuse of authority from officers of the Education and Finance Departments.

In order to fight corruption and discourage private schools to operate a cartel, the Supreme Court in Pakistan has not allowed an increase in school fees of more than 5% per year. Many directors of private schools took money from parents for security deposits and admission fees and earned profits on that money. An Auditor General report highlighted how in public schools some teachers received very good salaries, but they were not doing justice to what they receive while teachers in private schools earned far less amount but they perform better.

eNews Channel Africa reports that a recent document made by the school monitoring survey shows the national absenteeism aggregate for teachers in South African schools has risen from eight percent to ten percent on an average day. Teacher unions are discussing the lack of context of the report.

Lebanon ranks 143rd out of 180 countries in the world in 2017 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. The President of the Central Inspectorate states that the Ministry of Education has "reduced teachers' working hours" and is carrying out recruitments, "which are not necessary”. He announced unexpected visits to public administrations in 2019 as part of the fight against corruption in order to introduce a tool to monitor recruitment.

The Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) has suggested that the Ministry of Education (MoE) introduce anti-corruption education under religious and moral education subjects. The senior vice-chairman stressed that ‘’the most appropriate and effective way to prevent corruption is to start with the schools as it could help bring up a young generation of Malaysians who hate and reject corruption in all forms”. A study of students in 2016 showed that 16% of the respondents from local universities are willing to accept bribes and 18.5% would accept a bribe if they did not have to face any action.

Kenya’s Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) has threatened to go to court if the ministry of education does not take immediate action against the higher learning institutions in the country that are reported to be deducting from their employees’ salaries illegally without remitting deductions to the relevant institutions. Last month the ministry of education released an audit report showing that some public universities in the country were deducting billions of shillings from their employees' salaries and not regularly remitting the money to relevant agencies. The amount the institutions have been deducting illegally from the employees’ salaries is alleged to total approximately US$100 million.

Two people are in hot water after allegedly defrauding the Mpumalanga Department of Education of an estimated R6-million. The two appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Thursday over their alleged involvement in a bogus school-feeding scheme. The Hawks said that in 2011 the accused allegedly submitted several fraudulent invoices to the Department of Education for services never rendered. An employee of the Department of Health allegedly recruited owners of various companies to submit these invoices. The money was allegedly deposited into the said businesses accounts, as well as individual accounts and was subsequently withdrawn and shared amongst the syndicate.

Ugandan police have made no arrests among the 88 suspects – some of them alleged to be politicians and business people – implicated in the altering or forging of marks at Makerere University, months after university officials reported the offences. Up to 69 degrees are to be cancelled at Makerere University following the findings of a university audit initiated in September. The audit report, which is not available to the public, has revealed that results were altered at senate level after lecturers and college and school registrars made their submissions.