Last week, Kenya fired its Higher Education Minister who had been suspended from cabinet last year following allegations of graft.

Nairobi — Higher Education minister has said he will not resign over a Sh96m fraud charge leveled against him in court.

Allies of the Kenyan Prime Minister have said they will boycott cabinet meetings until a dispute with the President has been sorted. The two men clashed after the Prime Minister suspended two ministers accused of corruption - only for the President to reverse the decision hours later.

People in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have been found buying fake degrees of all sorts from diploma mills and other bogus universities. Those universities have no physical existence and operate only through websites. Most diploma mills are operating from Britain or United States where academic standards are presumed to be very high. Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigations compiled a list of over 10,000 persons who obtained fake degrees from diploma mills in USA. A significant number of them are from South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. Currently, there are about 80 notorious diploma mills that operate from the United States and the UK.

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.