British universities are turning a blind eye to cheating, plagiarism and manipulation of markings. That’s the message from former chair of the academic council of the University of London.
In a speech this afternoon Geoffrey Alderman will warn that pressure to do well on league tables is causing lecturers to drop standards, leading to a rocketing number of first class degrees awarded (this is the best you can get at most universities in the UK).
“I have heard it seriously argued that international students who plagiarise should be treated more leniently than British students because of ‘differential cultural norms’,” says Alderman in a text of the speech made available early (quoted in The Independent and the BBC). “It is indeed rare, nowadays, for habitual plagiarists to be expelled from their universities.”
Below the fold: cheating around the world.
In a response emailed to journalists, umbrella group Universities UK’s president Rick Trainor says:
The UK model for assuring quality and standards in higher education is sound and well-established. It is also well-respected internationally and has informed and influenced parallel developments worldwide.
… In addition, all institutions have comprehensive policies relating to plagiarism and will take disciplinary action against students caught submitting work that is not their own. Many universities are already using advanced anti-plagiarism software to make sure that this is enforced.
Meanwhile, in Kuwait, the Arab Times says some people are complaining that banning students for cheating is “too severe a punishment”.
The paper quotes Samah Al-Madhoon, a social counsellor at a Kuwaiti ministry [of Education school, as saying students should only have the exam they cheat in disallowed, rather than being totally excluded. Banning from all exams “could bring a violent reaction from the students”, Al-Madhoon warns.
This was exactly the case in Pakistan recently when a University of Karachi MA student caught cheating in an exam drew a pistol and fired into the air (Daily Times).
An editorial in that country’s International Daily News warned yesterday:
Cheating is firmly embedded at every level of the education system, from primary school to university. … One such young man taking his BA exam at the University of Karachi this week pulled a gun on the invigilator who caught him cheating; and fired into the air by way of protest at having been found out. Academics blatantly plagiarise the work of others, both inside and outside of Pakistan, and bleat piteously of their innocence when exposed.
Over in America even school principles are plagiarising! Naperville Central High School principal Jim Caudill has been reassigned after giving a speech that borrowed liberally from one given a year earlier by a student (ABC News).
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says even their governor’s mental health commission “borrowed extensively” from an old study in their new report, without crediting their sources.
Of course, you’d have to go a long way to beat the University of Texas at San Antonio students who were outed earlier this year for plagiarising a plagiarism code.