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Despite the promises of great reforms in education made by the new President, the Soviet system is still running. Many allege that the bureaucrats involved in the renovations of schools frequently sign dual contracts with foreign construction companies, deliberately designed to allow a huge portion of the reported contract costs to disappear. Moreover, bribes are still viewed as a secondary prerequisite for university admission after one's scores on standardized entrance examinations.

According to an in-depth study entitled Effective Delivery of Public Services in the Education Sector, the progress achieved in Mozambique's education system in the last twenty years are is being threatened by diversion of funds, fraud concerning school admission and the awarding of building contracts, as well as by sexual extortion for good grades. The authors of the inquiry underline the urgent necessity to implement an anti-corruption legislation.

14 university officials have been investigated for corruption in Jiangxi Province over the past five years, including three university presidents. Due to a huge influx in college admissions, universities nationwide are undergoing massive expansions allowing many opportunities for graft during construction.

Last December, 1,055 high school communities around Mexico – comprising almost 1.3 million students – engaged in a transparency and accountability exercise. This involves each principal of public high schools completing three electronic forms covering more than 100 indicators. These range from income and expenditure, to enrolment and academic performance, to the condition of school equipment and infrastructure.

Protests in cities across Nigeria and widespread condemnation followed this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, the national university entrance test sat by 1.5 million would-be students. Computers froze, multiple results were issued and tens of thousands of candidates were relocated to different exam centres without being told. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board or JAMB has been accused of being incapable of handling the electronic entrance exam. Parliament and civil society groups have called on the government to initiate reforms to rescue the board from alleged lethargy and inefficiency.

THE HRD Ministry is set to launch a programme next month that would probably be the world’s largest student tracking system, sources said. Shala Asmita (All School Monitoring, Individual Tracing Analysis) Yojana (SAY) aims to track the educational journey of close to 25 crore school students from Class I to Class XII across 15 lakh schools in the country. This online database will carry information about student attendance and enrolment, mid-day meal service, learning outcomes and infrastructural facilities, among other things, on one platform for both private and government schools.