Scandal of degree papers up for sale

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PHOTO | STEPHEN MUDIARI An advert for research services at a city hotel.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By NATION CORRESPONDENT newsdesk@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Sunday, July 21  2013 at  23:30

Kenyan universities are churning out thousands of half-baked graduates annually because a large number of students have been paying third parties to write their theses, academic reports and answers for take-away assignments.

So widespread has the scandal become that employers have raised the red flag, saying prospective candidates consistently fail industry tests.

“You employ these masters’ students, who have good papers, but the same is not reflected in how they approach the work,” said Mrs Jackline Mugo, the executive director of the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE). “The quality of papers produced does not match this alleged masters degrees.”

Investigations by the Nation have uncovered a racket in which students buy ready answers for take-away exams, projects and thesis reports that are then presented for marking.

With Sh14,000, a Masters student can buy copies of theses in any of the over 60 bureaus that have sprung up in Nairobi and other major towns. And for only Sh2,000, one can buy a researchable topic, proposal or concept paper that one can then submit to unsuspecting lecturers who then innocently approve them, paving the way for the students to buy the main project paper.

In Nairobi, some of the racketeers have set up bureaus in buildings rented by campuses. Their offices are tastefully furnished, an indication that they are engaged in highly profitable schemes.

At the University of Nairobi, those engaged in the illegal practice conduct it in the halls of residence and some openly advertise their services on notice boards and walls of lecture halls and other campus buildings. Some of the mercenary researchers are stationed in a students’ office on the campus.

According to Mrs Mugo, employers have hired workers with Masters’ degrees but they turn out to be ill-equipped for the tasks. “You wonder if they hired someone to sit in class for them,” she said. “It is very common (to find incompetent graduates).”

She recommended that universities equip their graduates with hands-on-training to be able to easily transit to the world of work.

University of Nairobi vice chancellor George Magoha said the malpractice of buying theses and other academic papers was rampant at the institution about five years ago before his administration had developed a system to net the cheats.

The School of Business was the hardest hit at the time with Masters students cheating in their projects. Many of the students were expelled when controls were put in place.

“All projects at the masters and PhD levels have to be defended before a panel of experts in that discipline. It is never easy for any students to cheat through that stage,” Prof Magoha said.

He gave an example of PhD supervision at the Kisumu Campus of the university where only one student passed out of nine candidates during the defence last week.

“Their projects had major corrections to be made and therefore they could not be allowed to proceed to the next stage.” 
Asked why many posters littered the university with calls for assistance, the VC said it was not wrong for the students to seek guidance on how to write their projects. “However, it is criminal to submit work that is not yours to the university. If somebody is caught doing that, there is no question but has to be expelled.”

Prof David Some, the chief executive of the Commission for Higher Education (CHE) — whose agency is in charge of checking standards in universities — said the senate of each university was allowed to dismiss students found cheating, including those who recruit people to carry out research projects on their behalf.

Senates are the organs in charge of standards at universities. A university also has the power to withdraw degrees that have already been awarded if it discovers that the graduates did not conduct research of their own.

“A student has to sign to show that the project they are handing over is their original work,” Prof Some said. “If the university finds this is not the case, they have a right to withdraw the degree.”

Kabarak university lecturer Hanington Mala concurs that cases of cheating are rampant in public and private universities.

“There are cases you ask the student a question slightly out of the project, but rather obvious, and the student is thrown off balance,” he said.

An economics lecturer, Samuel Nyandemo, said he was not aware that students were being helped to carry out their research.

“I am not aware that this is happening, and if it is, then this is an academic crime,” he said. “We have a thorough system of checking the projects  to ensure all students go through a panel and those discovered to have cheated on the project are deregistered.”

The Nation interviewed a Bachelor of Commerce graduate who said she had made “lots of money” from selling projects since 2009.

When a Nation reporter called her posing as a student who wanted to buy a Masters’ project, she directed the writer to a parking lot at the University of Nairobi. She met the reporter at the precincts and offered to help out at a fee of Sh20,000.

Although she admitted it was an illegal business, she said there was a ready market for the business from all the universities that have set up base in Nairobi.

Another research “expert” narrated how he prepared students to hide their tracks in case of a suspicious lecturer.

He promised to take the “client” through the whole process, “communicating via email in details so that you will defend your projects well.”

One of the researchers, a Bachelor of Arts graduate, quit a well-paying job after realising he could make even more from the projects. He operates from a modern office on Muindi Mbingu Street in Nairobi.

The charges of the projects depend on the course one is taking, the level, number of pages and the urgency of the client. Engineering and Law projects are more expensive.