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According to the education minister, primary school head teachers will be required to sign performance agreements every year. Many pupils had not attained the desirable learning competency in literacy and numeracy partly because of the slackness, absenteeism and lack of commitment from the head teachers. The assessment guidelines and the tracking of the teachers' performance will help to create a more fair and verifiable system.

Falsification of report cards to obtain admission into private schools in Kigali is listed as one of the major challenges hampering education quality. Speaking during an education workshop organised by Kigali City Council, an education activist from Power in Education, a local civil society organisation, revealed that a recent survey indicated that over 100 students in various city schools used forged report cards to obtain admission.

Global Corruption Report: Education, released on 1st October, argues that corruption has not just raised the cost of higher education but has also hindered socio-economic progress in many African countries by diminishing the quality of university education.

The issue of quality assurance in the tertiary education system has become a public concern as a consequence of the scandal in which the president of the National Accreditation Commission and at least two chancellors of private universities were arrested and accused of money laundering, bribery and accepting kickbacks.

The university "Laique Advantiste de Kigali" (Unilak) has defied a directive from the Education ministry requiring it to submit academic credentials of recruited lecturers for verification. According to sources in the ministry, the university leadership continues to recruit students. Unilak secured a provisional license but the ministry nevertheless refused to grant it the degree-awarding accreditation, citing lack of capacity to provide quality education.

The European Commission wants to call for tenders between now and the end of the year to set up a European educational ranking system for universities. This ranking, which will be available in 2010, would be an alternative to the Shanghai one. Indeed, a study conducted in 2008 questions this ranking; this analysis sought to test changes in the methodology, in order to see how the final ranking would evolve where levels differ, aggregation systems vary or even where one of the six indicators is not taken into account. Result: the ranking can vary from dozens of places.

Universities determined to rise up international rankings are increasingly "playing" the methodology, Shaun Curtis of the University of Exeter in the UK told the "Worldviews 2013" conference last week. One way is to seek support from colleagues in other institutions who are answering rankings questionnaires, and another is to game the data.

An ITV documentary has investigated whether some schools are taking duplicitous measures to achieve top marks. The problem is said to have developed after league tables based on exam results were introduced in 1992, putting more pressure on schools to perform well. Schools can obtain more financial rewards if they feature highly in league tables, while the jobs of heads and teachers are at risk if a bad Ofsted inspection means the school goes into special measures.

KOLHAPUR: Like the grading system in higher education through the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the state government will soon introduce the State Assessment and Accreditation Council (SAAC) system for the assessment and accreditation of the primary and secondary schools across the state, a move welcomed by city-based education activists who say it will bring transparency to the education system and will force schools to improve their infrastructure and education quality

Ukraine has little to offer international students. The quality of education offered is low, there is endless red tape and corruption is rife. Over the past quarter century, the quality of education offered has dropped dramatically due not only to a lack of state funding and a consequent brain drain, but primarily to rampant endemic corruption. Failed structural reforms and institutional incapacity in higher education have left Ukrainian youth without any hope of receiving world-class education and have had a negative impact on international students as well.