The housing crisis, cost-of-living pressures and language barriers are prompting university students to turn to “contract cheating”, where bespoke essays and assignments can be bought online, experts say.
Cheating websites advertise heavily on social media, target Australian students and promise “ghost writing” work that will not be picked up by anti-plagiarism software.
In August, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) used its new powers to block academic cheating websites for the first time. The agency blocked 40 websites that were visited about 450,000 times a month. The education minister, Jason Clare, said the cheating services threaten academic integrity and expose students to criminals who often attempt to blackmail students into paying large sums of money.
A Kenyan whistleblower told the Australian newspaper he wrote thousands of assignments for Australian university students while working for a Chinese company. He said most of them are Chinese students and they can buy fraudulent essays and theses for as little as $149 for 1,000 words.
Dr Guy Curtis from the University of Western Australia, who edited the soon-to-be-published book “Contract cheating in higher education”, said his research found about 10% of students submit assignments written by someone else, and more than 95% of them are not caught.
Curtis, who is a senior lecturer in applied psychology, said academic integrity is critical, and that the biggest problem was if students graduated without the knowledge they need.
“[Imagine] a doctor not knowing a disease, a nurse not knowing how to measure a particular medicine … an engineer not building a bridge properly,” he said.
Curtis found those with English as a second or subsequent language are three times more likely to cheat. Males, and those in degrees such as engineering, business and IT, are also more likely to cheat.
“University study is hard, and it’s harder to do in a language that’s not yours,” Curtis said. “There’s a lot of evidence of what students say when they talk about their engagement with contract cheating, employing ghost writers, or outsourcing coding. They do it when they’re under pressure.
“Family pressure … the cost of living, living away from home, finding the work difficult, or that they don’t have enough time or support from their universities.”
The National Union of Students says students who are struggling to keep up, who have housing issues, or have the added challenge of being an international student, will be more tempted to cheat.
“We’re in a cost-of-living crisis, students are working low paid jobs, they’re working more hours, so studying becomes a second priority to survival,” the union president, Georgie Beatty, said.
“It’s much easier to cheat when you’ve come back from a 12-hour shift at Maccas, where you’ve been treated like crap, and your essay is due at 6pm.
“It’s ridiculously hard to focus on studying, let alone writing in a language that’s your second language when you’re worrying about where you’ll sleep.”
Beatty said the pandemic made it harder for students to access support, with support staff positions cut. A properly funded welfare system would help free students up for study, she said, and universities need to stop seeing international students as “cash cows”, and ensure they have the help they need.
Curtis said while there’s no magic bullet to stop cheating, he and his colleague have identified environment, engineering, education and enforcement as key “guardian” factors. The environment is the organisational culture; engineering includes the human and technological detection systems; education means raising awareness of appropriate practices; and enforcement refers to how breaches are detected and penalised.
He said while there were examples of staff feeling pressured to pass students who “weren’t up to scratch” because of the money international students bring in, universities in general “act with a good deal of integrity”.
“[But] universities have been chronically underfunded for 20 years, that means corners get cut in lots of things,” he said.
The chief executive of Universities Australia, Catriona Jackson, said universities backed the government’s approach of tracking the websites down and blocking them.
“Contract cheating threatens the integrity and reputation of a university degree,” she said. “These ruthless operators are exploiting vulnerable students.
“We recognise the pressures students sometimes find themselves under, but cheating is never the answer, no matter how challenging the circumstances.”
Jackson said universities offer a range of academic support services, and that students should seek help if they need it. Penalties for cheating can include expulsion and revoking degrees.
The federal government passed the Prohibiting Academic Cheating Services Act in 2020, and it allows for fines of up to $110,000 or two years jail for companies as well as the blocking of their websites in Australia. Universities, the government and TEQSA are working on a range of other ways to crack down on the practice, including technological solutions.
