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The Department of Basic Education Annual Report tabled in Parliament this week reveals evidence of large-scale corruption in its flagship Kha Ri Gude mass Literacy programme. These revelations have emerged just a few weeks after the Kha Ri Gude programme was awarded the 2016 UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy at an awards ceremony in Paris. The Department’s Annual Report indicates that fruitless and wasteful expenditure increased from R 28 000 in 2014/15 to R 44,3 million this year due to alleged corruption in the Kha Ri Gude adult literacy programme.

Educating school children and young adults on the subject of corruption on the Seychelles’ three main islands is the aim of a joint project between Transparency Initiative Seychelles (TIS) and the Anti-Corruption Commission Seychelles (ACCS). Other than educating students and pupils, key activities under the project consist of revising the existing Anti-Corruption Act, reinforcing the capacity of the Transparency Initiatives Seychelles and to improve the latter’s advocacy through technical assistance and equipment.

The government-funded apprenticeship 3aaa was placed into immediate administration, putting 4,500 apprenticeships at risk, after the Department for Education pulled all of its funding from the firm following the police investigation of fraud. The DfE’s Education and Skills Funding Agency allocated more than £31m to 3aaa last year for apprenticeships and adult learning schemes.

Police arrested eight persons who duped teacher-aspirants on the pretext of helping them crack the assistant teachers’ recruitment examination that was held to recruit 69,000 teachers in 2019. The aspirants gave Rs1 lakh as an advance while the remaining amount was to be given after declaration of results. Cash worth Rs 7.56 lakh, mark sheets of many aspirants, and other documents along with a diary containing details of candidates were recovered from the accused.

There have been several cases of ethical violations in India in recent years. A well-known newspaper reported that a series of articles belonging to prestigious research institutions have been published by Indian scientists. They were flagged on a research discussion platform for including images that had been altered and copied from other sources. However, some improvement in ethics has been noted. The government's Chief Scientific Adviser issued the Draft National University Ethics Policy in July 2019, which addresses issues such as plagiarism, data manipulation, and harassment. In December 2019, the UGC made a two-credit course on ethics mandatory as part of undergraduate courses in India.

The director of the Training Domain, an educational institution in Fort Meyers designed to improve students ‘employability skills, has been charged with 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of Federal Student Assistance (FSA) fraud. From July 2017 to April 2019, she assisted students in applying for financial aid but instead of using the loan and grant proceeds to hold classes and for other educational expenses, the director kept the FSA fund and split them with students. She also created false and fraudulent high school diplomas.