Low wages and lax standards have created a vicious cycle: teachers and school administrators demand bribes; parents feel they can't refuse.

The Gauteng Education Department dismissed five officials accused of theft, fraud and corruption. A senior departmental manager was fired for allegedly violating tendering and procurement processes and financial mismanagement. The department suspended a further three officials earlier this year after it was alerted of their alleged illegal practices in awarding tenders, mismanagement and not complying with policies that govern procurement.

A 31-year-old junior clerk in the Eastern Cape Department of Education was arrested by the Joint Anti-Corruption Task Team for allegedly defrauding the department of more than R37 000. He had fraudulently deposited the monthly salary of a retired teacher into a bank account. The Director of communication mentions that his suspension illustrates the department's commitment to eradicating all forms of corruption and running a clean administration.

The Bush administration proposed guidelines last month that would let research institutions decide whether to restrict researchers' financial interests in studies involving human subjects, and whether such interests should be reported to the research volunteers.

A non-profit corporation that provides a high-speed computer network to colleges in New York State agreed last month to pay the federal government $1.4-million in a lawsuit alleging that it had misused a federal grant.

Contractors hired to build schools in Mbale district have accused primary school management committees of demanding bribes before releasing funds under the school facilitation grant programme.

According to the Ministry of Education and Sport, at least 952 teachers are "ghosts" or irregularly kept on the payroll. Investigations reveal that some head teachers have allowed some teachers to remain on the payroll irregularly. Given an average salary of sh250,000 per month per teacher, government has been paying sh238m monthly to ghost teachers.