Essay cheating at universities an 'open secret'

Mr Foster said he believed cheating was more prevalent among international students because some did not have good enough English language skills.

He described one overseas student scoring 2% in an exam and 99% in an essay.

"When you get that kind of disparity in the marks, it's clear the student has been cheating," he said.

"When you see a student who clearly struggled with the language and they submit an essay which William Shakespeare would have been proud of, then immediately that's going to arouse suspicion."

Mr Foster claimed many teachers "turned a blind eye" to cheating, which had allowed the problem to "snowball".

"Would you want to travel over a bridge that's been designed by one of these students?" he asked. "Would you like to put this accountant in charge of your business's operations?"

In a statement, Universities UK said the Home Office set the level of English required as part of the conditions for student visas.

"All universities have codes of conduct that include severe penalties for students found to be submitting work that is not their own," the statement added.

The University of Lincoln was one of the most extreme examples, with 78% of 387 investigations involving non-UK students, who make up only 22% of the institution's student population.

A spokesperson for the university said academic misconduct was a "sector-wide challenge". Alleged breaches were "thoroughly investigated and addressed through our established processes, with appropriate responses where misconduct is confirmed".

Higher education institutions run essays through programmes such as Turnitin, which are designed to detect plagiarism and false authorship.

Annie Chechitelli, chief product officer at Turnitin, said the rise of AI had made detection and deterrence "more critical than ever".

In more than one in 10 papers reviewed since 2023, Turnitin said its detection tool found AI wrote at least 20% of the material.

Turnitin said essay mills were still popular because of a growing demand for services that evade AI detection - preying on students' fear of being caught.

Eve Alcock, the director of public affairs at the Quality Assurance Agency, which aims to improve standards in higher education, said essay mills remained a "threat to academic integrity across the UK".

She encouraged universities to consider moving away from essay-based assessments in response to the rise of generative AI tools, to allow for more "authentic" assessments.

Alia, who has now finished her course, said she felt disillusioned by her experience.

"I have learned a lot myself, and achieved a lot, but how is the employer going to see the difference between someone like me and these people?" she asked.

"When the grades were released, for most of the modules they got better grades and were laughing at me.

"I am not proud of this degree anymore."

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