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A member of the commission responsible for the examinations at the end of the first cycle of secondary (BEPC) and 50 other persons have been arrested. According to the police, they stole copies of the tests before the start of the exams. Using new technology, they swiftly copied the questions and put them on sale for students and parents in some areas of the country.

Scandal and large scale cheating. Images of dozens of parents climbing the walls of an examination building to help their children was a scandal and spread like gun powder on the Web. Dozens of persons, mobile telephones and cheat sheets in hand, were to be seen hanging onto window sills of a building where end-of-term exams were being held.

Between the end of year fête and the start of the summer holidays, it is traditional for teachers to receive small gifts from parents and students as a thank-you for the past year. To the delight of chocolate makers, florists and many more.

In a recent radio interview, the education minister highlighted the national campaign currently undergoing preparation in her ministerial department aimed at students and their parents in order to make them aware of the fight against examination fraud, which is becoming increasingly common in schools. The minister stated that, despite the fact that cheaters are using increasingly sophisticated technology, the education sector is determined to fight this trend.

With each teacher taking an average of 6.6 sick days per year, the non-replacement of absent teachers is a source of tension with parents. In the public sector, substitute teachers cover 97% of long-term absences at the secondary level. This rate falls to 38% for shorter absences. However, when it comes to replacing teachers, be it for longer or shorter periods, the private education system is more efficient than the public sector.

The national education minister announced in Alger on Wednesday that a joint commission would be set up to follow up on the application of the code of ethics signed at the end of November 2015 by the ministry and union representatives from the sector. The implementation of this commission, which counts among its member representatives from the ministry, unions and parent teacher associates, aims to follow up on the effective application on the ground of the different clauses of the code. The commission will be tasked with finding the mechanisms which will “make this code effective, in particular at the local level”.

The state of Egypt’s public schools is an essential indicator of the ways in which the Egyptian revolution has not reached its citizens. In fact, private tutoring has now become Egypt’s de facto education system. A number of teachers have admitted, unofficially, that they teach the strict minimum in class so as to be able to recuperate these same students in private tutoring sessions. According to some estimates, Egyptian families spend over 1 billion dollars in private classes to compensate for the poor level of education: a cost which comes to almost a quarter of the family income.

In South Africa, an incident at a school in Soweto revived the debate over false teacher qualifications. This week, a former primary school teacher stabbed a director who had suspended him. The teacher was dismissed after the school discovered, following a complaint from parents, that he had lied about his qualifications and had no diploma. According to the South African Council of Educators, dozens or even hundreds of teachers lie about their qualifications.

Meet in Class is a start-up that wants to simplify tutoring: four students share the price for a tutoring course. According to its founder, in France, tutoring represents a market of 2.5 billion euros of recognized courses, but 80% of the courses are paid under the table. The prices of courses offered through a "classic" agency cost between 40 and 50 euros per hour, a price considered too expensive for parents