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A senior US official has called for independent verification of Afghan government figures on the use of US education aid following claims by Afghan ministers that the previous government had provided data on US-funded school and higher education projects that were flawed, tempered and exaggerated, and had interfered with university entrance exams. These allegations suggest the existence of ghost schools and teachers that are being paid for with US aid money.

Afghan education officials have found themselves embroiled in controversy after a record number of students failed in national university entry exams last week. Afghan students accuse the Higher Education Ministry, which determines university placement, of fraud and discrimination, insisting that as many as 60,000 of them failed purely on the basis of their ethnicity and mother language.

Afghans paid $2.5bn (£1.5bn) in bribes over the past 12 months, or the equivalent of almost one quarter of legitimate GDP, a UN report suggests. Surveying 7,600 people, it found nearly 60% more concerned about corruption than insecurity or unemployment. More than half the population had to pay at least one bribe to a public official last year.

Afghanistan must now confront a problem in education: the lack of text books. Millions of new books pledged and paid for by donors have not been delivered due to corruption and bureaucratic snags. According to figures that emerged from the interviews of officials from 34 Afghan provinces, about one third of the textbooks ordered last year never reached their destination. Currently, learners have no other option than to illegally copy books that are available for purchase.