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The West African Examinations Council says it has not recorded any case of examination leakage in five years. It also denied knowledge of the existence of "special exam centers". The centers were allegedly created by some principals and secondary school proprietors for their candidates who are compelled to pay fees higher than the official fees charged by WAEC. The money is reportedly used for lobbying officials of the council to release the examination question papers to the centers ahead of the official time of the examination.

The system is open to abuse because there is no counterchecking and quality assurance by the Education ministry of exam registration, marking and results. As a result, dishonest heads collected exam fees from students but failed to register them, said the Kenya National Association of Parents.

The cost of running schools could go down by as much as 40% if corruption is eradicated. Moreover, if the head teacher's lifestyle is beyond what is expected of his station, blow the whistle. This is bound to raise cries of witch-hunting, but it is practised effectively in the Scandinavian countries, which are the least corrupt in the world.

A wave of corruption sweeps the system, from secondary to higher education. Schools also suffer from "teacher drain".

An inspection of more than 100,000 schools has found that students have been charged 853 million yuan in illegal fees last year, Education Minister Zhou Ji said yesterday. He said 395 headmasters were among the 2,448 people fired or punished for imposing the fees. About 639 million yuan had been returned to parents after the inspections. Illegal charges for everything from school uniforms to field trips are rampant in many areas, prompting the government to launch a far-reaching clean-up campaign.