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The certification of textbooks by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERD) costs N300 per page, and four copies must be submitted for assessment, which occurs irregularly and can take months or years. While NERDC approval grants access to Federal Government schools, getting state-level approval requires further steps across Nigeria's 36 states. Despite these procedures, unapproved textbooks lacking ISBN numbers infiltrate schools through corruption, bypassing regulations. Efforts to tackle piracy and enforce the use of approved books remain ongoing and vital for the education system's integrity.

Borno State Governor has ordered a review of the primary school teachers’ verification exercise conducted in December 2020, which found 7,794 ghost teachers, after the Nigerian Union Teachers (NUT) complained that 624 teachers have been wrongly included in the ghost workers’ list. A Committee will review two reports submitted to the Governor on teachers’ verification and a Biometric Data Capture of local government Staff and Local Education Authorities.

The Enumeration Committee of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s homegrown feeding programme has uncovered 349 ghost schools in Nasarawa state. The Committee discovered that some officials were pocketing the money meant for school meals. Two officials were suspended and replaced, however, calls to remove Nasarawa state from the programme were rejected in order to avoid punishing the poor children benefiting from the scheme.

Education stakeholders criticise the Federal Government (FG) decision to spend N999 million on public primary school students under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme. Investigations revealed that some students denied the existence of the programme while food vendors claimed that the programme had become a means for public office holders to embezzle public funds, as they did not receive what the government had promised them.

Examination fraud remains the main challenge for the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), especially amongst parents who constantly ask for their children to receive favorable treatment, regardless of whether they meet requirements. JAMB is also fighting corruption in higher education institutions that admit students outside of the guidelines of the Ministry of Education.

The World Bank has suspended the first tranche of $100 million in a programme to fund free schools in DR Congo after a November report found fake invoices, lists of teachers filled with fake names at non-existent schools, and alleged embezzlement of 63 billion Congolese francs ($31 million). Two senior officials, including the head of teachers’ payroll, are in pre-trial detention.

About 22,556 ghost workers were discovered in local government pay system in Borno after two verifications exercises on local government staff and primary teachers. Reports show that N183.6m has been recovered in bogus teacher’s salary while N237m from ghost local government staff. The total number of primary school teachers in the 27 local government areas was 26,450 before the verification, however, 2, 204 did not appear before the committee.

1,500 ghost teachers employed by the Niger State Universal Basic Education Board have been found in primary schools A report revealed that 28,058 personnel were on the payroll of the board but that only 26,070 showed up for the screening. 1,000 of the teachers who appeared for screening were not qualified to teach any primary school in the state as they "cannot read and write.

The cases of corruption in the education sector in Oyo State are ranging from reports of school administrators collecting money, students sitting mock exams, officials asking for grants from principals before distributing the school materials the government purchased for students to receiving money from teachers to deploy them to preferred areas. The governor announced that dismissal and prosecution awaited anyone who sabotaged government efforts through corrupt practices.

In order to capture teachers’ daily attendance, the State Government introduced fingerprint devices in 219 secondary schools under the Ministry. The new system will not only help reduce teacher absenteeism in primary and secondary schools but also eliminate ghost workers. The State Commissioner for Education reported that 53.5 per cent of teachers do not show up for work at all.