An industry-wide alert over an “aggressive” wave of commercial academic cheating services at Australian universities has been issued by the government’s higher education watchdog.
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) issued the “sector alert” after the regulator became aware of “accounts of aggressive and direct promotional activities of commercial academic cheating services that target students studying for an Australian higher education award”.
The accounts received by the regulator suggest these operators are approaching students on Australian campuses in order to promote these cheating services and to obtain students’ details.
A higher education insider told Noticer News cheating was rampant and linked to international students using the education system as a pathway to permanent residency.
“The cheating is just egregious. Almost everything students submit is done by CHAT GPT or some other form of AI,” they said.
“But no one cares. As long as the students pay their tuition everyone wins. The students get a visa and get to stay in Australia, and the university gets the revenue. It’s all completely corrupt.
“The response by the universities has been to pretend to care about AI use by emphasising the import of academic integrity, but also to just tacitly accept that the cheating will continue.
“The universities could fix the problem overnight by returning to paper-based exams but they won’t do that as it would kill their business model. It’s all a joke.”
The current warnings come after TEQSA issued a previous sector alert in April 2024 for a similar wave of commercial cheating services found operating online, including via email, social media and messaging apps.
TEQSA believes the current on-campuses approaches are organised and coordinated and may include the offer of incentives and easy sign-on methods for prospective users of these services.
The activities may also involve the coercion of students “who have previously used commercial academic cheating services, under threats of blackmail, to sign-up other students”.
TEQSA also advises that engagement with these illegal operators could leave students “vulnerable to identity theft and blackmail, and increase cyber security risks for students and higher education providers.”
The agency adds that these cheating services are often coordinated by organised groups and that this may involve criminal behaviour, including placing students who engage in these services “at risk of blackmail or identity theft”.
These blackmail activities, TEQSA notes, could “include demands for further payment, class materials or contact details of other students”.
TEQSA advises universities and other institutes of higher education to “be vigilant in addressing risks to academic integrity by engaging in a range of activities to educate students, detect cheating, upskill staff and report cheating services”, and that any reports of commercial cheating can be lodged on the agency’s website.
TEQSA also encourages education providers to ensure that their students are made aware of the risks involved in engaging with these commercial cheating operations, including informing students of how they may access security and support if “they are experiencing blackmail”.
A government report from October found about 40% of foreign students end up getting permanent residency, a far higher number than previously estimated.
The Jobs and Skills Australia study on the education sector also found that 70% of foreign students in higher education said migration was a key factor in choosing to study in Australia.
Header image: Sydney University (Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
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