Universities 'turn blind eye to plagiarism'

University degrees are being dumbed down amid pressures on lecturers to "mark positively", a leading academic warned today.

"League-table culture" is to blame for a surge in the number of firsts being awarded, according to Professor Geoffrey Alderman, ex-chairman of the academic council at the University of London, which is responsible for maintaining academic standards.

Professor Alderman said universities had become especially lax towards students, turning a blind eye towards plagiarism and cheating because they need the income from fees.

"The more firsts and upper seconds a university awards, the higher a ranking is likely to be," he said. "So each university looks closely at the grading criteria used by its league-table 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 number of first class degrees has leapt by more than 100 per cent in 10 years, from 16,708 to 36,645, despite only a 40 per cent increase in the number of undergraduates.

Professor Alderman said: "Standards of English literacy at UK universities are often poor. To compensate for this, lecturers are pressured to 'mark positively'.

This is particularly true in relation to international students, whose full-cost fees are now a lucrative source of much-needed revenue." Only 143 students out of 9,229 cases where plagiarism was detected were expelled last year.

A spokesman for Universities UK said: "All courses are subject to regular internal monitoring and review by the university, including through the external examiner system, and the university's processes and mechanisms are, in turn, subject to additional external scrutiny by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education."