BAE Systems has signed an agreement to give £29.5million to educational projects in Tanzania.

The settlement has been arranged after the defence giant was accused of corruption by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in 2009 for paying bribes to win contracts from several countries in Africa and Eastern Europe, including Tanzania.

In 2010, the company was fined £500,000 after admitting it had not kept adequate accounting records about a contract for an air traffic control system to the country, and agreed to take on any recommendations from an independent review into its behaviour.

The UK Government has been helping BAE, which has a plant at Samlesbury, and the Government in Tanzania determine what the money should be spent on and how it will be delivered and monitored.

It has been decided that the money will be used to by textbooks for courses in English, maths, science and Kiswahili for all 16,000 primary schools in the country, meaning 8.3 million children will benefit.

The funds will also be used to provide all 175,000 primary school teachers with teachers' guides and up to £5 million will be spent on desks to benefit school children in nine of the country’s poorest areas.

The announcement came just days after the company’s workers agreed to to take one day’s unpaid holiday each month in a bid to avoid compulsory redundancies.

Richard Alderman, director of the serious fraud office, said: “This agreement is a first for the SFO which piloted it through the UK legal system.

“It provides a satisfactory outcome for all concerned but most of all for the Tanzanian people and I am personally delighted that SFO staff were able to achieve this”.