3rd April 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Damian Hinds, the education secretary is calling on PayPal to block payments to so called “essay mills” to try and prevent university students cheating. Reported on the BBC, he says that it is unethical for companies to try and profit from this, and PayPal have agreed to investigate essay writing services. Hinds added that he also thinks UK universities should consider asking every student to agree to an honour code, as they do in the US.
Many firms who supply essays claim that they are genuinely helping students and should been seen as supplying study aids, rather than deliberately cheating. They sometimes compare themselves to the tuition industry. However, the Quality Assurance Agency say that essay mills damage reputations and lives. There have also been accusations of blackmail from these firms who threaten to expose students who have cheated.
The QAA identified 17,000 cases of cheating in 2016, and say that many more may have gone undetected. This is obviously a problem for our university education and Hinds says that essay firms should be more concerned with their reputation.
Essay mills will argue that it is a student’s responsibility not to cheat, but Hinds realises that some students take an easy way out when the pressure of university life becomes too great. He thinks essay firms prey upon this pressure and realise what they are doing. There is evidence from the US that an honour code significantly reduces cases of cheating and maybe this is one way to slow down the practice.