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A Nottingham teacher has collected 3,800 reports on corruption in the international school system that deal with nepotism, fraud, and cheating. In England, they highlight structural "reform", with its waste of money on free schools that never open, the horrific ongoing costs of successive Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs), and the way schools are pitched against each other to survive. Examples include an academy boss telling teachers to cheat on exams and the widespread relocation of students to improve school performance.

A number of senior officials in the Eastern Cape have been accused of corruption in relation to an R1 billion-school nutrition programme in the province; another case involves irregularities in relation to school infrastructure provisioning or allegations of corruption in the awarding of a contract to EduSolutions by the Limpopo Department of Education. The contract for the procurement of textbooks for schools in the province was canceled in 2012 after millions had been paid to EduSolutions.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stepped up an offensive against the Delhi government and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over corruption in the construction of classrooms. For the 1,033 schools under the Delhi government, the amount of the budget was 23.51 per cent, while for the 743 schools under the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the Delhi government allotted only 1.46 per cent from the budget. AAP increased the cost of projects for the benefit of only those it favoured.

Politicians, senior education officials, headmasters, and businesspeople are taking advantage of their positions to line their pockets with state funds. According to a study, the acts of corruption in Thailand range from the embezzling of state funds, colluding to mark up prices of educational and school construction materials, as well as demanding bribes from parents who want their children to be enrolled in a particular school. Irresponsible officials and school directors steal about 30% of the total budget.

The project "Cost of the School Day" aims to reduce the disadvantage experienced by poorer families in meeting the cost of the school day. Thoughout 2018, the project used "participatory budgeting" to allow local people to decide how money should be spent in 10 primary schools in three priority areas, namely Mayfiled, Woodburn, and Gorebridge. 
 

An associate professor of political science at the University of Brasilia talks about Porto Alegre (Brazil) and its "Participatory Budget" experiment. This experiment was effective at giving poor neighborhoods control over planning decisions, as long as those decisions remained focused on small scale projects.