Students smuggling mobile phones into exam halls were the reason for a sudden rise in the numbers caught cheating during last summer’s GCSE and A-level exams in England, according to official data. The figures also showed that the number of teachers and school staff involved in exam malpractice more than doubled between 2016 and 2017. Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, said the most common category of malpractice was the introduction of “unauthorised materials” into exam venues. “In most cases, this was a mobile phone or other electronic communications device,” it said. Unauthorised materials accounted for half of all students given penalties for cheating, and of those nearly 80% were owing to the use of mobile phones. Plagiarism was the other major category, accounting for 17% of cases, with the majority in computing.

But Ofqual cautioned that the overall number of cheating cases remained low despite the 25% increase. The 2,715 penalties issued to students represent just 0.015% of exam entrants. In 2016, about 2,180 students were caught, a rate of 0.011%. The figures do not include the scandal over the Pre-U exams revealed by the Guardian last year.In most cases students were punished with a reduction of marks or given a warning, but 490 had their grades annulled. Students found with mobile phones were more likely to lose marks.(theguardian)…[+]

Saudi Arabia has taken a key step towards allowing future investors to buy shares in its national oil company, as it prepares for the world’s biggest stock market flotation later this year. Saudi Aramco was recently forced to deny it was planning to shelve plans for its $2tn flotation of 5% of the company, and the new change suggests the planned IPO is still on track. A royal decree published on Friday converted the firm into a joint stock company, meaning it can have more shareholders than its current sole shareholder, the Saudi government.

“This is part of the preparation process for the IPO. You’d expect that to happen,” said a source close to Saudi Aramco. The decree changed the legal status of the oil company from 1 January. The source said the company was doing everything it needed to deliver the IPO for the Saudi government, which has insisted the flotation is on track for the second half of 2018.

There has been intense speculation over where the international listing will take place, with London, New York and Hong Kong in the frame. The UK government had to deny last November that a $2bn loan to the oil company was tied to efforts to woo Saudi Aramco to list in London. The kingdom’s top officials hope to list on New York but the company prefers London, but both may be ruled out because of regulatory obstacles, the Financial Times has reported. “No decision has made on the listing,” a company source told the Guardian.(theguardian)…[+]

Two Ebola survivors are to sue the government of Sierra Leone in the first international court case intended to throw light on what happened to some of the millions of dollars siphoned off from funding to help fight the disease.

The case, filed with the regional west African court in Nigeria, alleges that a lack of government accountability allowed the disappearance of almost a third of the money that came into the country during the early months of the Ebola outbreak in 2014. It claims that this led to violations of survivors’ rights to health and life .

An audit of the first six months of the outbreak showed that more than $15m (£11m) worth of resources donated to the government went unaccounted for – more than 30% of what came into the country over that period. Lara Taylor-Pearce, Sierra Leone’s auditor general, said in an interview with the Africa Research Institute that she felt justice was needed for Sierra Leoneans over the missing millions: “For serious breaches of financial management procedure I would support forcing the individuals responsible to pay back the money. It would send a strong message. But currently this does not happen. People continue to get away with transgressions.”

Sierra Leone recorded more than 14,000 cases of Ebola in two years, and about 250 health workers died. Officials promised survivors free healthcare and a small financial package, while surviving heath workers were told they would receive up to $5,000.(theguardian)…[+]