In the media

Nigeria's former education minister and six others have gone on trial charged with corruption. The former minister is accused of paying a $400,000 bribe to parliament to ensure the passing of an inflated budget for his department.

The report from Transparency International evaluates the bribes versed to construction contracts in the world to over 300 billions of dollars. Some thirty billions are promised for the reconstruction of Iraq and around 10 billions of dollars are aimed to the reconstruction of South-East Asian countries hit by the tsunami last December.

The president of New Zealand's largest postsecondary institution defended it last month against politicians who have accused it of widespread corruption. It is also suggested that the university is home to nepotism and fraudulent accounting.

Widespread cheating in the 2004 KCSE examination has been discovered. The civil society want the government to explain why it has failed to stop examination cheating. Some 1,739 candidates from 107 schools had their results cancelled for cheating. Out of this, 1,617 were found to have colluded with each other, 134 were caught with unauthorised information during the exams and another 16 were found impersonating.

The National Council for Higher Education and Research (Cneser), which is an administrative jurisdiction, treats every year cases of fraud in the French education system.

809 procedures against university students have been raised because of cheating. In 1999, 84 cases of fraud were detected for the graduating exam, against 148 cases in 2003. Out of the 77 cases discovered in 2004, 55 concerned use of personnel documents; 8 use of mobile phones; 6 change of draft and 8 false identity.

The West African Examinations Council says it has not recorded any case of examination leakage in five years. It also denied knowledge of the existence of "special exam centers". The centers were allegedly created by some principals and secondary school proprietors for their candidates who are compelled to pay fees higher than the official fees charged by WAEC. The money is reportedly used for lobbying officials of the council to release the examination question papers to the centers ahead of the official time of the examination.

Kogi State Primary Education Board (SPEB) has commenced the verification of primary school teachers' certificates in the state in the effort to sanitize and raise the standard of teaching in primary schools across the state.

Several hundreds of students cheat on exams every year and the methods and imaginations are better than ever; programmed calculators; copying from Internet; fake identity card and so on. However, the sanctions can be up to two years exclusion from sitting an exam.

Education minister Andrew Mulenga has stressed the need for accountability and transparency in the education sector to ensure benefits reach the intended target. The minister said at a joint annual review in Lusaka that there was need for accountability because the government was accountable to the people and education was the cornerstone for development.