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A former finance clerk is accused of embezzling $859,000 in funds that belonged to Esperanza High School’s student council. State auditors allegedly identified 270 checks made payable to the former finance clerk who oversaw the books while others were for two of the clerk’s relatives. According to the State auditors' bank records from 2005 to 2011, the total amount of embezzled funds is more than $1.5 million.

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money was allegedly deposited into the said businesses accounts, as well as individual accounts and was subsequently withdrawn and shared amongst the syndicate.

Ohio Auditor’s opponent in the state attorney general’s race said that he should immediately have referred to authorities a whistleblower’s allegations that the state’s then-largest online charter school intentionally inflated attendance figures. The Education Department previously found that the school significantly over-reported its number of full-time-equivalent students and owed the state $60 million for the 2015-2016 school year. Another $19 million penalty was assessed for 2016-2017.

The Government has set up a new audit body to crack down on corruption in schools. The body to be known as Directorate of School Audit (DSA) will be tasked with scrutinising the use of the billions of shillings sent to schools. According to the Education Principal Secretary, DSA will examine books of accounts to identify the expenditure leakages and report back to the ministry. School heads found to have presided over theft or misuse of the money will be forced to bear the responsibility.

Education Cabinet Secretary has described the auditing system used in Kenyan schools as a “big joke” and a great let-down and accused auditors of colluding with headteachers to give favourable reports even when money has been lost. He also decried the inappropriate use of free learning cash and the distribution of government-purchased books in schools and described the system of assessing the performance of teachers as still substandard.

The President has ordered an audit of how public primary and secondary schools have spent the billions in free learning cash released to them across three years. Free Primary Education funds were first rolled out in 2003, with each child getting Sh1,020 per year. In 2014, the Jubilee government increased FPE to Sh1,420 to cater for an estimated enrolment of about 10 million children in about 23,000 public primary schools. Annually this costs Sh14 billion.