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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money was allegedly deposited into the said businesses accounts, as well as individual accounts and was subsequently withdrawn and shared amongst the syndicate.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education is currently under investigation for alleged corruption and financial maladministration. The Education Minister has appointed a team of forensic investigators and a multi-disciplinary task team to look into the allegations. Both the National Association of Teacher’s Union and the Congress of South African Trade Unions have brought alleged issues affecting schools.

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”.

MPs have rejected assertions by the Walter Sisulu University‚ service provider Intellimali and NSFAS that there was foul play in the "erroneous" payment of R14-million into a student’s account. The lawmakers from across the political divide pointed their guns at the three entities‚ with some telling Intellimali that they were too quick to lay criminal charges against the student‚ while the role of their employees has not been investigated in the matter. MPs also called on the higher education department to consider a review of the system used by NSFAS and universities to pay living allowances to students‚ saying there was no need for "middlemen" to be involved in the distribution of billions of rand.