University Vice-Chancellor calls for ban on essay mills

THE Vice-Chancellor of the University of Chichester has joined nearly 50 higher education leaders in signing a document calling for the banishment of essay mills.

In a letter sent to the government, vice-chancellors from across the UK sector – including Professor Jane Longmore – as well as chief executives of major organisations demanded action against the mills and other forms of contract cheating. The letter, which has 46 signatories, called for a legal ban on the basis that “essay mills undermine the integrity of UK Higher Education and are unfair to the vast majority of honest, hard-working students.”

Recent research shows the growing problem of companies offering students assignments-to-order. Unlike traditional plagiarism, essay mills provide students with bespoke, original pieces of work which cannot easy be detected by anti-plagiarism software such as TurnItIn.

Researchers have found that 15.7 per cent of students admitted to cheating since 2014. Essay mills advertise online, on social media, near campuses and even on the London Underground, bombarding students with messages encouraging them to cheat.

A freedom of information requests from Wired magazine also found that more than half-a-million emails were delivered directly to university inboxes over the last twelve months, a number likely to be a significant underestimate. Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and 17 US states have already introduced or are introducing a ban.

In the letter, the university leaders said: “It is time for the UK to also take the necessary action to demonstrate that the UK is not a safe haven for essay mills to do business, and so to safeguard the reputation of the UK Higher Education sector.”

The leaders are calling for the government to

• Commit to introducing legislation to ban the provision and advertising of essay mills before the end of this year’s parliament,
• Commission higher education standards body the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) to develop and publish a draft bill by or before the beginning of the next parliamentary session,
• Support efforts by the QAA and Office for Students to tackle the issue, including through the QAA’s proposal for a UK Centre for Academic Integrity, with a formal remit to research, analyse, and combat academic misconduct.

A petition to ban essay mills has also been launched and has gained more than 4,000 signatures is available to view at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/227277