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The Secondary School Teachers Union of Zambia (SESTUZ) has blamed parents for rampant examination malpractices. Parents are actually in the fore-front organising and buying leaked examination papers for their children. According to SESTUZ the government needed to build more schools because the population of Zambia had increased drastically while the number of schools remained static.

A pilot program 'Fighting against corruption through schools' will teach students and parents to identify and act against dishonesty in their schools and the rest of society. Most civil servants in Cameroon, including teachers, earn low salaries and rely on bribes to feed their families.

The education ministry has failed to take action against teachers and other education officers identified as guilty of misconduct by various investigations and commissions over the years. Affairs between schoolgirls and teachers, and schools misusing equipment given to them to improve the quality of education are among the countless problems that had emerged from investigations.

The Mpumalanga education department has begun disciplinary hearings for 61 teachers accused of being involved in last year's matric exam cheating. Investigations revealed that candidates were assisted, possibly by teachers, in one or more subjects. Irregular practices took place at 10 of the province's Mpumalanga's 587 examination centres.

The firing of a teacher who helped expose the cheating in last year's matric exams shows that whistle-blowers' rights are badly protected. This despite the promise from the Education Minister to protect those who exposed the cheating. Seven months after the fraud in the Mpumalanga matric exams, the only person who has been penalised is one of the whistle-blowers.

Honduras invests large sums in education, but powerful teachers' unions and political appointments hinder reforms in a sector vulnerable to corruption and lacking of civil society monitoring. There are 50,000 teachers in the country; between 2,500 and 6,000 of them have pending issues about their posts (such as irregular paid leaves or unjustified absence while still on the payroll). For current decentralization plans to impact positively on education services, local auditing skills need to be improved, parents must be given a bigger role, and unions must adhere to codes of conduct.

Few people enter the teaching profession for the money. Teachers repeatedly describe it as "a vocation", widely recognized as a euphemism for poorly paid. But for a few enterprising teachers, the education system is rife with opportunities for personal financial gain. A report on corruption in education, published this week by UNESCO highlights ways in which heads, teachers and education officials can extort and embezzle school funds.

After being audited by the College Board's first quality-control of the Advance Placement program, some teachers have met with a surprising rejection of their courses. The results of the audit have rubbed the already bruised relationship between some high school AP teachers and the college professors who are evaluating them.

New teachers often face a many-month delay before they receive their salaries. Teachers sometimes supplement their income with a second job. This can affect their own attendance at school, and can put pressure on the amount of time they have to prepare their lessons. A 2007 report by the Cambodian NGO Education Partnership (NEP) reveals education costs for each child averaged $108 annually, or 9 percent of each family's annual income. "When you include informal and formal school costs, and private classes and snacks, many students are paying $2.50 every day," the education and capacity-building officer for the NGO Education Partnership (NEP), told IRIN. The inability to pay informal fees was the most common reason parents gave for their children dropping out, the report stated.

Although the post-conflict period ended officially in 2006, the Ministry of Education is still not able to effectively monitor teaching and learning processes nationwide. The system records teachers who do not physically exist, teachers that do not teach (´ghost teachers`), and teachers receiving salaries from several schools. In mid-2006, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) placed two experts in the Planning Directorate of the Education Ministry in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, to set up an Education Management Information System (EMIS). This article summarizes the results of their investigations.