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Corruption is still rampant among most officials of the Teachers Service Commission, a report released by TI indicates. Recruitment, deployment and promotion of teachers were identified as the 'hot spots' for potential corruption. However, the study indicates that efforts to make the selection criteria more objective were positive.

The federal polytechnic has expelled 162 students for examination malpractice, cultism and poor academic performance, in the 2004-2005 session. The students were expelled for their involvement in examination misconduct during examinations.

The chief executive of the National Examinations Council (NECO) has authorised the council's officers to accept bribes if offered by desperate students or their parents. The measure is to save lives of NECO personnel subjected to frequent and deadly attacks by persons desperate to pass their Senior Secondary Certificate Examination by all means. In the last two years, NECO officials had been splashed with acid.

Exam Ethics Project has declared Benue State as the highest in national Examination Malpractices Index (EMI), ranking for the year 2005. Federal Capital Territory emerged as the most exam ethics-friendly state with the lowest EMI of 0.43, while Benue State had an EMI of 18.87. The report for 2005 Exam Year indicates that the EMI for all the regions was 6.9 against 16.9 for 2004. This means that examination fraud reduced by 59 per cent between 2004 and 2005.

The Ministry of education will probe private schools over irregularities in the fight against corruption. The education minister and the Board of audit and inspection will soon jointly select private schools suspected of mismanaging their schools. They will only investigate those which are suspected of mismanagement and corruption, rather than doing random investigation.

According to Izvestiya Nauki, a corruption-monitoring team at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, university teachers took roughly $923 million in 2004. Some estimates indicate that corruption in universities is rising by 7-10 percent annually. The Highest School of Economics believes one out of ten university lecturers take bribes, and 20% of future students and their parents would be prepared to offer a bribe.

The Mayor of Ngoma District has issued a stern warning to school headmasters who inflate school registers with non-existent students and charge high fees on students sponsored by charity organisations. The authorities would punish anyone found guilty.

A large number of parents have expressed their dissatisfaction over the way teachers are demanding money for the release of end-of-year results to their children. Parents are now calling on the minister of education to do something towards the extra charges in primary and secondary schools in order to up hold the free education scheme for all.

Sierra Leonean civil society activists are working to improve accountability. The National Accountability Group (NAG) – the local chapter of Transparency International – used a Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) to find out what had happened to school fee subsidies and learning materials designated for a sample of 28 schools in a rural district. NAG's survey came after an earlier Ministry of Finance PETS revealed startling figures about education corruption. In 2002 researchers found that 45.1 percent of the funds for school fees subsidies were unaccounted for and that nearly 28 percent of teaching and learning materials had disappeared.

According to a report, directors of the College of Business Studies are embroiled in a syndicate involving fake college transcripts. The college officials provide fake results and transcripts for people intending to travel overseas on the pretext of going for further studies for a fee that some allege is no less than US$2,000.