Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students had their university degree award rescinded due to cheating or plagiarism in each of the last three years.

The information requested on degrees rescinded because of academic offenses is not held centrally. In 2016, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) found there were approximately 17,000 instances of academic offences per year in the UK.

The use of companies that sell bespoke essays to students who pass the work off as their own undermines the reputation of the education system in this country, and devalues the hard work of those succeeding on their own merit.

The government expects that educational institutions do everything in their power to prevent students being tempted by these companies. The most recent guidance from the QAA highlights the importance of severe sanctions of suspension or expulsion if ‘extremely serious academic misconduct’ has been discovered.

On 20 March, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education challenged PayPal to stop processing payments for ‘essay mills’ as part of an accelerated drive to preserve and champion the quality of the UK’s world-leading higher education system. PayPal is now working with businesses associated with essay-writing services to ensure its platform is not used to facilitate deceptive and fraudulent practices in education.

Google and YouTube have also responded by removing hundreds of advertisements for essay writing services and promotional content from their sites.

In addition, the department published an Education Technology strategy on 3 April which challenges tech companies to identify how anti-cheating software can tackle the growth of essay mills and stay one step ahead of the cheats. This strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/realising-the-potential-of-technology-in-education.

We are determined to beat the cheats who threaten the integrity of our higher education system.