BY JAMES SIMONS
Over 1,700 students at Oxford Brookes University have been caught cheating between 2012 and 2015, according to a freedom of information request by the Times newspaper.
The prestigious University was among eleven institutions that said 1,000 or more students were caught cheating over the three-year period. Oxford Brookes was the 5th highest with 1,711 documented cases whilst Oxford University had 109 cases in the same period.
The finding show that close to 50,000 university students were caught cheating in the past three years in the UK, with students from outside the EU four times more likely to cheat than British born students, most likely because of the language barrier. University of Kent lead the list of cheaters with 1,947 reported cases, followed by Westminster University with 1,933 reported cases, East London University with 1,828 reported cases, Sheffield Hallam with 1,740 reported cases, and Oxford Brookes with 1,711 reported cases.
The precise reasons for so many cases of cheating have not been specified since students are not likely to reveal those. However, we can conclude that workload constitutes some of the reasons for cheating in top rated Universities like Oxford Brooks and Oxford University, combined with a disproportionate amount of time spent socializing instead of studying.
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Other reasons include coursework deadline set too close to exams in some Universities, thereby not affording enough time for students to transit between the two except for the most dedicated and consistent students. Some Universities also penalise students who hand in their coursework late by giving them no mark at all, whilst others penalise them by 5 or 10 marks for every late day. Those who find time running out on them may resort to plagiarism in an attempt to ensure they get their work in on time, and if they have exams shortly after a coursework deadline, they may consider cheating in exams as a necessary alternative.
Neither of the above reasons is a good excuse for cheating at the highest institution of learning, but such is the state of affairs in some of today’s UK Universities. Cheating in exams are very difficult because each student is allotted a seat on their own for the paper. However, when eye of media spoke to a few graduates and undergraduates by phone, the answer became all too apparent from different independent sources.
”Cheating in exams is not hard”, came the response from one current undergraduate, who did not want his name or University disclosed. I am aware of guys who get permission to use the toilet and would be in their pockets reading notes and answers to hypothetical questions rather than using the loo. Invigilators are not allowed to follow them inside the toilet, so cannot see what they are actually doing in the loo”.
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Looking at prepared notes in the toilet can potentially improve a students grade if he or she can make all the necessary connections between the notes and the exam question.Experts believe the real figures of cheating could be much higher since not all cheats are caught, and also in light of websites full of essay samples from former academics paid to help students.
The Eye of Media will be taking steps in the foreseeable future to establish how cheats in University are caught, as well as to liaise with Universities in addressing the root cause of cheating at Universities.
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