The Executive Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr AbdulRasheed Bawa on Wednesday during a sensitization lecture, titled ‘EFCC and the Role of the Youths in Curbing Cybercrime’ charged corps members to be good ambassadors of the fight against corruption.

The lecture was organised by the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) at the Orientation Camp, Yikpata, Edu Local Government Area of Kwara.

Bawa, who was represented by Ayodele Babatunde, Head of Public Affairs of the Ilorin Zonal office, said that youths were critical stakeholders in the fight against corruption.

He urged the youths to take ownership of the anti-graft crusade and channel their fertile minds productively to benefit the country.

The EFCC boss described the youths as future leaders that should imbibe the culture of hard work, excellence, integrity and shun all forms of economic and financial crimes.

He bade the corps members to be good examples in character and to conduct themselves well at their places of primary assignments, urging them to report any act that failed the simple test of integrity to the commission.

“We are inviting you to lend a hand in helping us build a society where there is respect for law and order and where impunity is a thing of the past.

“We urge you, when you see something, say something and don’t stop there, please do something,” he said.

He also urged the corps members not to engage in internet fraud or any other forms of corruption, which could jeopardize their future careers.

“There is no shortcut to wealth and fame, as the act of criminality might deliver wealth in the short term, but ultimately, it leads to misery,” Bawa advised.

In his words, “A corruption-free Nigeria is achievable, if all stakeholders were ready to join the fight and detest corruption in all its ramifications”.

Education Minister Tarek Shawqi has inaugurated “Silo Foods” industrial city which he says would affect the health and development of the citizens.

Shawqi said that the government has a plan to prepare a healthy generation of students via good school nutrition.

In his speech during the inauguration, Shawqi said the pre-university education system involves 24 million students, adding that work is underway in many schools to produce a new system that depends on building identity and personality via building healthy body and mind through school nutrition.

The Education Minister said the school nutrition presented by the Ministry of Education aims at providing healthy nutrition for students in addition to activities that will contribute to preparing a healthy generation.

The nutrition program targets 12 million students and one million at Azhar schools.

The Government of Kenya has released Sh17.47 billion to public schools for the first term of 2021 academic calendar.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha says the monies released comprise Sh2.62 billion meant for primary schools and Sh14.85 billion is to support secondary schools.

Magoha said the release of the funds will ensure uninterrupted learning in all public institutions during the first term.

He directed Principals to strictly adhere to new Ministry of Education guidelines on school fees that were issued based on the 30-week school calendar, adding that any additional fees outside of the official guidelines will not be tolerated.

He said the government is impressed by the high turnout of form one students who started reporting to their secondary schools beginning Monday, August 2.

In line with the 100 per cent Transition Policy, parents and all stakeholders have been asked to ensure that all Form One students report to their secondary schools, given that the funding to support learning activities for Term One, 2021 had already been released.

A total of 1,179,192 KCPE candidates sat for their examinations in March and were expected to join various secondary schools by the end of the enrollment exercise.

At the end of the Form One reporting exercise, all learners from Grade One to Form Four will be back to class for the first time since March 2020 when all schools were closed as part of government safety measures.

The Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in Liberia, Nathaniel McGill, says all senior students in public schools across Bong County will be provided full scholarships by Government in the 2021-2022 academic year.

Minister McGill cited senior students attending Gboveh Multilateral High School and E. J. Yancy, among others, as those that will benefit from the scholarships, noting that the gesture will be extended to other counties in the country.

The Minister of State also disclosed that private schools in the county will be provided one million Liberian dollars as school fees to buttress the efforts of parents of senior students attending these schools.

He disclosed that the initiative was the project of President George Manneh Weah.

Also speaking in Gbarnga recently, Finance Minister Samuel Tweah quoted President Weah as saying the problem of health, education, road and women empowerment, among others, will now be concentrated in the rural parts of the country.

He added, that President Weah has instructed the Finance Ministry to ensure that the country’s economy is stabilized.

According to Minister Tweh, Liberia is the one country where government is not borrowing money from the Central Bank, as a result of what he described as responsible fiscal management.

He further pointed out that the government is adding no debt to the one it inherited in 2017.

The Finance Minister also revealed that the country’s inflation rate has decreased massively from 30% to 8% as a result of the president’s leadership strategies which, he noted, have resulted in strong domestic revenue generation.

The United States Education Department released $3.2 billion in emergency aid to 1,800 historically black colleges and universities and other minority serving institutions – the latest tranche of federal funding from relief packages Congress passed over the last year meant to help schools recover from the pandemic.

The release of additional aid brings the total federal relief for colleges and universities to more than $76 billion.

The schools are set to use the additional funding to identify and re-enroll students who halted their studies during the pandemic, to expand mental health services and to boost retention programs to ensure more students make it to graduation.

The release of funding marks the second major release of aid ahead of the 2021-22 academic year.

The Education Department released $600 million last Tuesday for K-12 schools to bolster support for homeless students.

Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has challenged universities to allocate more resources to improve the efficiency of virtual learning by acquiring more electronic resources.

Magoha said universities need to work with the Commission for University Education (CUE) and ensure that while engaging and teaching learners through virtual learning, standards are not compromised.

Prof Magoha in a speech read on his behalf by Chief Administrative Secretary Mumina Bonaya during a graduation ceremony at the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) said that the only challenge is for institutions of higher learning to make virtual learning more efficient and sustainable.

He added that there is a need to allocate more resources to improve the efficiency of virtual learning by way of bandwidth and acquisition of more electronic learning resources.

Magoha noted that the pandemic was a wakeup call for learning institutions and thanked universities for swiftly shifting to virtual learning that kept learning ongoing despite the suspension of physical learning.

The CS said that although it was an expensive move, students bought computers and connected them to internet to make it possible for virtual learning.

The CUE has progressively been approving universities to ensure they meet the minimum requirements to offer blended learning.

Among the requirements for universities is to have relevant infrastructure, internet connectivity and relevant equipment to support online learning.

TUK Vice Chancellor Francis Aduol said the university has increased its investment in ICT infrastructure to support blended learning adding that university council has been very crucial in lobbying for the necessary assistance for both operational and infrastructural resources.

The chairperson of the university council, Dr Halima Saado, said over the years, the TUK has suffered underfunding due to historical factors including its transition from Kenya Polytechnic to Kenya Polytechnic University College and later to the Technical University of Kenya.

She said the transition involved retaining all existing staff and diploma courses among others.

Dr Saado asked the Ministry of Education to give the university more funding to match its requirements, saying it needs heavy investments in workshop equipment and laboratory teaching aids as well as in ICT.

Prof Magoha asked graduates to use their skills for self-employment or alternative jobs that do not necessarily suit the courses they have done in universities.

Prof Magoha advised graduates to be open to grab any opportunity that may come their way.

Kenya’s race to rid the country of fake certificates is quickly gathering momentum with 74 public universities registering to list their graduates in a central database that will lock out academic cheats.

The registration exercise by the institutions to be considered as Qualifications Awarding Institutions will close on September 30.

The universities are expected to register the qualifications they award, followed by registration of the graduates on the Kenya National Learner’s Records Database by December 1 this year.

The database will display all records of graduates from primary school to university level.

Speaking during a consultative meeting with the Auditor General, Nancy Gathungu, the Kenya National Qualifications Authority (KNQA) chair, Kilemi Mwiria, explained that the authority intends to ensure that people seeking employment have genuine academic documents.

The authority will employ a multi layered approach set in place to reduce opportunities and access points for hackers to ensure that only authorised users are authenticated to access the data.

A portal will also be opened for members of the public to verify their qualifications. In case of mismatch or any other form of discrepancy, such cases may be reported to the institutions, which will have the rights to correct such anomalies.

Mwiria noted that institutions in rural areas that have no electricity or internet connectivity will also benefit as ‘Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation and Ministry of ICT intend to connect electricity to all learning institutions, and the connection of all learning institutions to the national fiber grid.

As the institutions start sending in their data, the authority says it has put mechanisms in place to ensure data verification and integrity.

A recent report from KNQA reveals that one in every three Kenyans holds fake academic documents.

On July 8, Abdalla Mohamed, a candidate who had been shortlisted for a commissioner’s job at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission was forced to withdraw from the interviews after the Kenya Methodist University disowned his degree.

Early this year, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, which started a crackdown on fake certificate holders in formal jobs, has indicated that they will partner with the KNQA to uncover the fraudsters.