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”.

Plans by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to export its examinations system to China have been put on hold following charges of fraud by students looking to gain entry to Britain on study visas. Staff at a Sino-British college, Sea Rich, raised concerns that many students were not studying, but had been promised by the university a two-year-year HND for payments of US$2,200. The students had also been promised assistance by the university to get UK entry clearance.