The Guardian – Richard Adams
“British education is experiencing an epidemic of trickery and cheating, ranging from primary school teachers rigging key assessments through to 40,000 university undergraduates disciplined for plagiarism over the past four years. An investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches, to be screened on Monday night, describes how shady practices and in some cases outright fraud are woven into the fabric of UK education as the use of exam results, league tables and performance indicators increases the pressure on students, teachers and institutions to succeed. A series of freedom of information requests by the Channel 4 researchers found that in the past four years more than 58,000 undergraduates have been investigated by their universities for plagiarism. Of the 40,000 who were disciplined, 400 were expelled or excluded from higher education, while 12,000 had marks deducted, affecting their final degree classification in many cases.”(more)