Universities 'turn blind eye to cheating to boost results and climb league tables'

Professor Geoffrey Alderman said tutors were coming under increasing pressure to 'mark positively' and award students more firsts and 2.1s.

This had led to a decline in academic standards over the past five years, said the professor of politics and contemporary history at Buckingham University.

'League table culture': Blamed by Prof Alderman for causing huge rise in firsts

British universities had got themselves into a 'mess' and were overlooking plagiarism and substandard coursework, he said in a lecture on Monday evening.

Universities were treating overseas students particularly leniently because they represent a lucrative source of revenue.

He spoke out after figures showed that a record one in eight university students are being awarded first-class degrees - a near-doubling in a decade.

And despite 9,229 recorded cases of plagiarism in a year, only 143 students were expelled.

Professor Alderman, ex-chairman of the academic council at the University of London, responsible for maintaining standards, said 'league table culture' was partly to blame.

'The more firsts and upper seconds a university awards, the higher its ranking is likely to be,' he said.

'So each university looks closely at the grading criteria used by its league-table near rivals, and if they are found to be using more lenient grading schemes, the argument is put about that 'peer' institutions must do the same.

'The upholding of academic standards is thus replaced by a grotesque "bidding" game, in which standards are inevitably sacrificed on the alter of public image - as reflected in newspaper rankings.'

He added: 'Standards of English literacy at UK universities are often poor. To compensate for this, lecturers are pressurised to "mark positively".

'This is particularly true in relation to international students, whose full cost fees are now a lucrative and essential source of much-needed revenue.

'I have heard it seriously argued that international students who plagiarise should be treated more leniently that British students, because of "differential cultural norms". It is indeed rare, nowadays, for habitual plagiarists to be expelled from their universities.'

The professor cited the example of Paul Buckland, a professor of environmental archeology at Bournemouth University, who quit after university authorities ruled that 13 students whom he had judged to have failed a course should have passed.

'Nothing could better illustrate the sorry level to which academic standards have fallen in many British universities in recent years,' he said.

Meanwhile at Liverpool there had been a sudden leap in the proportion of firsts awarded from seven per cent to 17 per cent in a year.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he added: 'There is well-documented evidence of pressure coming from on high from offices of vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors down to junior lecturers to up the number of first and upper second class degrees ... and to pass students who should actually fail.'

Meanwhile students were part of the problem and were 'interested merely in acquiring and regurgitating those segments of knowledge necessary to obtain a degree'.

'It is now commonplace for students to complain if they are expected to read more than the "recommended reading" set out in the module syllabus, and some will even protest if they are asked to go into a library and read material of their own choosing, not included in the "course reader" they expect each lecturer to provide,' he said in his lecture.

But Professor Rick Trainor, president of Universities UK, the vice-chancellors' umbrella group, said: 'The UK model for assuring quality and standards in higher education is sound and well-established. It is also well-respected internationally and has informed and influenced parallel developments worldwide.

'In addition, all institutions have comprehensive policies relating to plagiarism and will take disciplinary action against students caught submitting work that is not their own. Many universities are already using advanced anti-plagiarism software to make sure that this is enforced.'