Earlier in the week, the BBC reported shock findings on behaviour within our Higher Education system:
University students who are caught submitting plagiarised work are very rarely expelled, shows a survey. A study found only 143 students caught cheating were expelled out of 9,200 cases – despite almost all universities threatening expulsion as a sanction.
Of the other cheats, 1,475 were let off with a formal warning. The remaining students were required to report to the government’s new regional Centres for University Discipline, where trained officers administer corrective canings. “I was given twelve strokes for copying my friend’s essay,” explained Emma Buckenham (pictured), a second year student at the University of Cheshire, “whilst she was given four strokes for helping me to cheat. We’ve learned our lesson the painful way, and neither of us will ever break the rules again.”
Almost eight out of a hundred students caught plagiarising had already been caught on previous occasions. These offenders are birched. No cases of students being caught plagiarising for a third time have been reported.
OK, OK: I may have edited the text just a little…
Pretty big numbers… can’t quite believe I haven’t heard of these Centres for University Discipline before, or seen even one of the 600 students who have been birched standing at the bus stop hoping there isn’t a seat left for them when their bus arrives.
The Oxford University Handbook printed in 1948 starts its section on discipline in this way: “The discipline which is exercised by the University over its junior members has varied with the changes both in the average age of graduation and in the general habits of society.” I’m sure it has, and that it will change in the future.
ROFL Sarah’s not looking hard enough, presumably!
Mike – does it provide a version control feature, allowing you to study former disciplinary regimes?!
So Students can get away with plagurism… Ooo I can’t wait.
Not at UofE, I’m afraid! All of our submitted work is scanned through numerous plagiarism programs, and anybody caught copying is put straight under investigation! And pretty damned stern it is too, I hear…