This Article is From Jul 31, 2009

Now, plagiarising scandal hits Aus foreign students

Melbourne:

After violent attacks and expose of migration scams, the woes of Indian students in Australia seem to be mounting with new scandal breaking that a large number of overseas students had copied their masters thesis particularly in the IT programme.

The fresh scam exposed by The Australian newspaper said several overseas students, including Indians, were found to have graduated from University of New England with copied masters thesis which gave them better chance of getting permanent residency.

The paper said some of the students were allowed to graduate even after a probe began into the scam. The scandal was more prevalent for a master programme in the Information Technology offered by the New South Wales University.

This has been an attractive course for students hoping for permanent residency as skilled migrants, the paper said.

According to the report, most of the students were from the Indian subcontinent but their characteristic English was interspersed with polished American and British English.

When contacted, a University spokesman told PTI that most of the students were from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.

The degree, begun with a commercial partner in 2004, turned out 220 plagiarised thesis of the 230 that were checked. To date, no UNE staff member responsible for the programme has been publicly held to account. The course was taught by the Melbourne Institute of Technology - UNE's partner.

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