Four Eastern Cape Department of Education officials and a businessman are facing charges of corruption, fraud, theft, and contravention of the Public Finance Management Act for R59 million meant for schoolbooks. Under the pretence that schools were adequately resourced with textbooks, they decided without permission from the National Treasury to shift and use 80% of the budget for the procurement of supplementary resource material, mainly IT equipment and photocopiers.

Stellenbosch University experienced an unusual increase in academic misconduct amongst students due to the move to online assessments during the COVID crisis. In 2020, 183 students were charged with collusion, where one or more students assisted each other during online assessments, compared to only 2 students in 2019.

Four former senior officials from the Eastern Cape Department of Education and a company director have been arrested on corruption charges involving the purchase of textbooks for students. The senior education official bypassed the department's supply chain process by obtaining a Supplementary Resource Material (SRM) agreement that was not required. Reports allege that the official received a bribe in the form of two laptops and a mobile phone from the company that received the R59 million for the SRM material.

According to the director of Higher Education Resource Services South Africa (HERS-SA) paper, 41 (50%) of women had experienced bullying in higher education workplace. Several South African institutions, including the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of Venda, and UNISA, have been in the news over claims of bullying, amid other controversies. At UCT, the Vice-Chancellor was accused of bullying by 37 UCT academics and staff members. Research also shows that some victims are bullied because they observed and spoke up about corruption, or even worse when they were forced to be part of corrupt processes.

A number of senior officials in the Eastern Cape have been accused of corruption in relation to an R1 billion-school nutrition programme in the province; another case involves irregularities in relation to school infrastructure provisioning or allegations of corruption in the awarding of a contract to EduSolutions by the Limpopo Department of Education. The contract for the procurement of textbooks for schools in the province was canceled in 2012 after millions had been paid to EduSolutions.

Two people are in hot water after allegedly defrauding the Mpumalanga Department of Education of an estimated R6-million. The two appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Thursday over their alleged involvement in a bogus school-feeding scheme. The Hawks said that in 2011 the accused allegedly submitted several fraudulent invoices to the Department of Education for services never rendered. An employee of the Department of Health allegedly recruited owners of various companies to submit these invoices. The money was allegedly deposited into the said businesses accounts, as well as individual accounts and was subsequently withdrawn and shared amongst the syndicate.

Universities and business schools are grappling with the ethics curricula they teach to professionals and future professionals. This follows damning revelations of state capture involving accountants, auditors and consultants at major international companies. The dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, said every crisis offers an opportunity. “There is a lot of debate within the senior executive team… we are working with two [international] economists, to develop context in the economics curriculum, it brings to the fore issues of power… so students think about economic systems with a historical perspective”.

Lecherous lecturers who demand sex in return for good marks could be named and shamed if students attending the HEAids National Youth Conference Durban conference. The UN representative said that power relations at campuses proved to be a “very big issue”, particularly the role of lecturers and sex for marks. The students attending one of the sessions came up with an “interesting concept” - to identify the offending lecturers on an application “grey list” so that their names would be known.