UGANDA’S government has ordered a chain of ramshackle private schools funded by the world’s richest man to close for failing to meet basic standards.

Education Minister Janet Museveni said on Tuesday that some 12,000 Bridge International Academies (BIA) pupils would be moved to state schools.

The Ministry of Education found that most of the BIA schools were not properly registered, had poor sanitation and lacked trained teachers among its 800 staff.

“We found out that most of the allegations against the school were true and deserved attention,” Ms Museveni told parliament.

“The school started in 2014 and was located at 53 sites, but with only one licensed.

“Its legal status was not established and it never went through the procedure of registering international schools.”

Ms Museveni said the schools would be allowed to reopen once they met the required standards.

BIA Uganda Head of Corporate Affairs Michael Kaddu claimed at a press conference on Wednesday that the firm was in “ongoing” consultations with the Ministry over its failings.

Founded in Kenya in 2008, transnational BIA is one of the biggest operators in the growing low-cost private education racket in Africa and India.

Its schools are typically corrugated iron shacks staffed by untrained teachers, giving lessons by rote from instructions on a tablet computer.

BIA’s financial backers include Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates — worth $78 billion (£60bn) — Facebook boss Mark Zuckerburg ($54bn/£41bn) and eBay supremo Pierre Omidyar ($8bn/£6bn).

It also gets cash from the British taxpayer via the Department for International Development, and is closely linked with British educational publisher Pearson.

The firm has already succeeded in supplanting state education in the west African country of Liberia, a former US colony.

In January Liberian Education Minister George Werner announced that all state primary and pre-primary schooling would be outsourced to BIA.

In May this year BIA had Canadian Education International (EI) researcher Curtis Riep arrested by Ugandan police during what they had told him was an interview with company executives.

The firm had previously run newspaper adverts with Mr Riep’s photo, alleging that he was impersonating a BIA employee for nefarious purposes — while admitting they knew he was from EI.