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The 7,500 academies in England educate nearly 4 million pupils. Thousands of pupils are being failed by a system that fails to give academy trusts proper oversight. The public accounts committee reported that governance of academy trusts must be strengthened and that the Department for Education’s oversight must be more rigorous. MPs have called for new sanctions to deter and punish malpractice after hearing that the former head of Durand Academy in south London was paid an £850,000 severance package.

There has been a tenfold increase in the number of students using a false alternative address while living at home to claim for a higher rate of living costs, according to figures released by the ministry of higher education and science, and more than three-quarters of those caught cheating were international students. In 2015 only six students were identified as having cheated with regard to the address provided; and for the first 10 months of 2017 the number was 66. Of these, 50 were either immigrants or children of immigrants, while 16 were Danish citizens, the ministry indicated.

A 23-year-old man, residing a stone's throw from Lyon, was arrested on Tuesday morning, 3 October, for trying to fool the higher education scholarship system. During the 2016-2017 school year, the young man had received government money based on the establishment he claimed to be attending the conditions he had declared. The problem was that the student had falsified his university registration document, and Crous, which manages student grants, came to realize it.

University officials have been accused of misleading an Oireachtas committee over the way they run their financial affairs. Senior officials from colleges including University of Limerick, DIT and University College Cork appeared before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee on Thursday to answer allegations over unauthorised severance packages, conflicts of interest and poor corporate governance. In one episode, officials at the university of Limerik paid severance packages to two staff due to ‘employment relationships breaking down’, but then went on to re-employ both individuals as consultants.