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According to the Head of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), essay mills have become “public health and safety issue”, affecting all of society. As a result of students cheating in their degrees, there will be people entering into professions who are not qualified to carry out the work that is required. This practice is spreading now to the sixth-formers going to essay mills to get through their coursework at school.

Allegations of academic fraud have been made against nearly 20 alternative higher education providers in London in recent months, the head of the UK’s standards watchdog has said. Warning that fraud and malpractice now pose a “real challenge” to traditional quality assurance in higher education, the chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency, said that his organisation had “recently received and, in some cases, investigated allegations about admissions, malpractice, academic fraud and the falsification of evidence in 19 alternative providers in London”.

Early research findings on academic corruption suggest that accreditation and quality assurance bodies in some countries are having success in handling the problem, but questions about how to deal with the unwieldy issue remain a work in progress. And while the topic is complex and multifaceted, research on student attitudes towards cheating offers some insights into how an emphasis on integrity might reverse the problem, which has long been the scourge of the higher education accreditation profession.

The independent quality body for higher education in the United Kingdom, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education or QAA, has issued new guidance on how to combat 'contract cheating', where students pay a company or individual to produce work that they then pass off as their own. The companies involved – typically using a website to promote themselves and receive orders – are often dubbed ‘essay mills’, but services provided may include not just essays or other assignments, but conducting research and impersonation in exams. While there is a common perception that students studying in another language are more likely to cheat than domestic students, there is currently “no UK data to support this view”.

The Universities and Science Minister demanded tough new penalties for university students who use essay mills – websites that provide custom written essays – and called on university and student bodies to do more to address the growth of such services. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education has also been told to take action against the online advertising of these services and to work with international agencies to deal with this problem.