Nationwide school audits were this year expected to cover over 80 percent of the 8 179 schools in the country, of which 5 805 are primary schools, while 2 374 are secondary schools. While the exercise has so far been producing results and unearthing massive irregularities and abuse of funds at Government school institutions, there are reports that schools are being asked to fund the exercise.

The ongoing Government audit of schools across the country has unearthed massive abuse of levies collected from parents and guardians purportedly to fund development of learning infrastructure. From the 1 800 (18 percent) schools audited so far, there are indications of massive doctoring of accounting records by the schools.

The Ministry of Education (MoE) has commenced the teacher verification process to ensure the restructuring and rightsizing of the teaching workforce. The purpose of this initiative is to audit the teachers' payroll and correct all identified anomalies to ensure the elimination of persons with fraudulent qualifications from the system. Money saved by the MOE, if any, will be used to rationalize the pay and benefits of educators to attract and retain professionals in the field.

Harare is reportedly losing thousands of dollars in revenue as some of its schools are not remitting tuition fees to the local authority. The city has ordered investigations to be conducted on four schools and a crèche. A bursar at one of the schools is set to appear before a disciplinary committee to answer charges of abusing tuition fees.