Universities Cheating Stats

Over the past three years, more than 45,000 students at 80 institutions have been found guilty of “academic misconduct” ranging from bringing crib-sheets or mobile phones into exam rooms to paying private firms to write essays for them, according to the Independent on Sunday.

Freedom of Information responses obtained by the newspaper revealed that some 16,000 cases were recorded in the past year alone.

Officials warned that despite spending vast sums of money on software to identify plagiarised work they were fighting a losing battle against hi-tech advances and were finding it increasingly difficult to detect the cheats - some of whom were paying agencies hundreds of pounds to produce customised essays.


University chiefs said the financial crisis had made many students willing to do anything to secure good grades.
Experts claimed New Labour's flagship policy of increasing access to higher education had left thousands of young people starting university without all the practical and intellectual skills required.


Original source here.