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Maharashtra State Council of Examination Commissioner and two other accomplices were arrested for alleged involvement in malpractices in the Teachers Eligibility Test. The fraud committed was worth Rs 4.25 crore, and the candidates were asked to pay Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh for passing the exam. A committee headed by Education Chief Secretary has been constituted to thoroughly investigate the case.

Four Eastern Cape Department of Education officials and a businessman are facing charges of corruption, fraud, theft, and contravention of the Public Finance Management Act for R59 million meant for schoolbooks. Under the pretence that schools were adequately resourced with textbooks, they decided without permission from the National Treasury to shift and use 80% of the budget for the procurement of supplementary resource material, mainly IT equipment and photocopiers.

To prevent the forging of information, a new digital platform will allow learners from primary to university levels to have an identification number. Schools will update data about their learners, teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure and facilities including physical education and sports through their online EMIS user accounts. The new system is aimed to eliminate ghost workers and improve transparency and accountability across the country.

Spokesmen for Ghana National School Feeding Associations called on the President and the Ministry of Education to investigate corrupt officials who exploit the system for their personal gains. During the 2019/2020 Academic year, the Ghana National School Feeding Programme paid GH¢12.9 million to individuals benefitting 511 ghost schools across the country that were not included in the school feeding programme.

A study by Transparency International Bangladesh found secondary-level education activities, including recruitment of teachers and inclusion in the monthly pay order, plagued with widespread corruption and irregularities. To be appointed as assistant headmaster or headmaster, one needs to pay Tk 5,000 - 1 lakh bribe or Tk 3.5-15 lakh to be included in the monthly pay order. The study also found a lack of accountability in different administrative works of education officials who did not attend office in time and regularly.

An investigation at Baltimore city school found that administrators schemed to inflate enrollment, pressured teachers to change grades and scheduled students into classes that didn’t exist. Over a three-year period, about 100 students remained on the rolls but didn’t attend the school. The school operated evening and summer courses designed to allow students to make up credits, but the courses didn’t meet standards. In some cases, unqualified teachers were assigned to teach the classes, and in other cases, staff members were named as teachers of record for a class they never taught.

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has launched a new biometric enrolment and validation of teachers system intended to address staff shortages and prevent the use of fake degrees. Pre-loaded data from the TSC payroll system will be validated when the teachers provide physical documents such as an enrolment certificate, national identity card, letter of first and last appointment together with their academic and professional certificates. This pilot registration took off in 143 schools in seven counties.

A recent report from Public Accounts Committee reveals the theft of billions of taxpayers' money pocketed by corrupt officials and school heads. The Mundeku Secondary School is one of the 4 ghost schools in the Ministry records with 1,188 students used by an official to steal Sh27,329,598.95 from public funds. The report found another officer inflating enrolment data for 185 schools, resulting in the overpayment of Sh269, 254,288. The cases have been submitted to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission for investigation.

A survey on plagiarism conducted by Copyleaks collected responses from 31,000 colleges and 20,000 high school students worldwide. The study shows that the largest increase in plagiarized submissions was recorded in the Netherlands, with 26% of cases before COVID compared to 45% after the pandemic, i.e. a total increase of 19%. This was followed by France (37% before vs. 49% after, i.e. - a 12% jump), closely followed by India (42% before vs. 53% after; i.e.- an 11% jump). The UK, Canada and Germany all saw a 4% increase in plagiarism cases.