Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the level of plagiarism in the education sector; and what steps her Department is taking to tackle plagiarism.

Cheating of any kind is unacceptable. It threatens to undermine the reputation of our world-class education sector and devalues the hard work of those who succeed on their own merit.

Ofqual require Awarding Organisations to have robust policies and procedures in place to prevent, detect, and deal with malpractice, including plagiarism.

The Joint Council for Qualifications have published guidance to support schools and colleges to identify and address concerns about plagiarism in exams and assessments, which can be found at: https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/malpractice/plagiarism-in-assessments---guidance-for-teachersassessors/.

Higher education providers are independent bodies responsible for their own approaches to preventing academic misconduct by students, including plagiarism, but are regulated in relation their assessment practices by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS sets the expectation that assessments must be designed in a way that minimises opportunities for misconduct and facilitates its detection where it does occur.