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A Nottingham teacher has collected 3,800 reports on corruption in the international school system that deal with nepotism, fraud, and cheating. In England, they highlight structural "reform", with its waste of money on free schools that never open, the horrific ongoing costs of successive Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs), and the way schools are pitched against each other to survive. Examples include an academy boss telling teachers to cheat on exams and the widespread relocation of students to improve school performance.

A nursery director is accused of taking advantage of a government funding programme for early childhood and pre-school education, which allowed two to four-year-olds from disadvantaged families to benefit from free nursery time between January 2017 and December 2018. She denies submitting bogus claims for funding credit and asking parents to lie about their situations.

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.

Amid a period of growth for the higher and further education sectors, with some institutions investing millions of pounds in new building projects and developments, officers want to highlight how organizations can be left vulnerable to the risk of money laundering, fraud, and cybercrime. Institutions also have a duty to ensure that workers in the supply chain are not being exploited as victims of human trafficking.

Elite universities in the United States and the United Kingdom have been investing endowment funds offshore in order to pay little or no tax, according to details revealed in the so-called Paradise Papers. According to the student run Fossil Free Pitt Coalition “We are concerned about the lack of transparency, as two-thirds of the endowment is just a mystery to us. We are suspicious about where that huge segment of the endowment is going.” An emeritus professor in accounting at the University of Essex, told the newspaper that UK universities should be more transparent about their investment decisions, since they are public institutions that receive public money, including from the European Union.

Ways in which students cheat are either ingenious or surprisingly obvious. Why do students cheat, and risk having to retake a module, having their degree classification lowered, or even being kicked out of university? There are many reasons – including financial pressure, poor organisational skills and panic – sometimes among young people who should never have gone to university in the first place or, at the very least, who should have had more support structures in place when they started.

Across the country, academies have been plagued by allegations of financial impropriety, conflicts of interest and even corruption. Unlike schools under local authority control, academies are responsible for their own financial management. Although this means that developing good corporate relations is essential, many have ended up without a proper framework for transparency and accountability. A 2014 report for parliament claimed that “conflicts of interest are common”, adding: “There is a broader sense that the academy system lacks transparency.”

A leaked report has revealed “extreme” government concern after an academy trust was found to have paid its chief executive more than £82,000 for 15 weeks’ work. The investigation, which took place over June and July this year, also found that Wakefield City Academy were unable to produce the list of students receiving pupil premium payments (additional funding to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in schools).

Oxford University has been urged in an open letter to review its decision to accept £75m from Britain’s richest man to build the Blavatnik School of Government. The letter also urges the university to carry out urgent “transparency and procedural reforms” with regard to foreign donations.

An ITV documentary has investigated whether some schools are taking duplicitous measures to achieve top marks. The problem is said to have developed after league tables based on exam results were introduced in 1992, putting more pressure on schools to perform well. Schools can obtain more financial rewards if they feature highly in league tables, while the jobs of heads and teachers are at risk if a bad Ofsted inspection means the school goes into special measures.