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Four days of rioting by secondary school students in Libreville last week highlighted a growing frustration with education cutbacks. Corruption and mismanagement of existing resources have contributed to declining standards in public services. The European Union and the Islamic Development Bank had allocated funds for the upkeep of the free school bus service. A newspaper accused the government of reallocating this cash to other areas such as election campaigning.

The children know that they can pay to get better marks. Other methods are also familiar such as sale of diplomas, « correction » of the mark report or embezzlement of school money by the teachers.

An inspection of more than 100,000 schools has found that students have been charged 853 million yuan in illegal fees last year, Education Minister Zhou Ji said yesterday. He said 395 headmasters were among the 2,448 people fired or punished for imposing the fees. About 639 million yuan had been returned to parents after the inspections. Illegal charges for everything from school uniforms to field trips are rampant in many areas, prompting the government to launch a far-reaching clean-up campaign.

Ten weeks in charge of Belgrade's most unruly high school killed its Director's passion for education. Few of the staff members were willing to cooperate with her efforts to stop a system of bribery for good grades. When the police caught one math teacher accepting a marked 50-euros note from a student and the problem came out into the open, the teachers rebelled against her with a vote of no confidence in her authority.

Ghana. Kazakhstan. Poland: In many countries, teachers must bribe their way into teacher-training college. Some then collect their salaries and do not actually teach; when they do, they demand bribes for students to pass exams. "Textbook racket" is also a common practice.