CANADA

Unemployed professors write students’ essays

As an associate dean of academic services, Catherine Bolton spends a lot of time studying, lamenting and worrying about cheating in universities. But a Montreal-based online service that propels the activity to a new level made even her wince. The website http://unemployedprofessors.com has teachers writing papers for students, writes Karen Seidman for Postmedia News.

“So you can play while we make your papers go away” is the website’s tag line. Organisers say education has already become a commodity and with tenure harder to get, teachers need work.

“The idea that it could be legitimate for any professor to sell their brain, when they know better than anyone that papers are assigned for students to learn,” said Bolton of the faculty of arts and sciences at Concordia University. “There are for sure teaching assistants and graduate students who do this, but professors?”
Full report on the National Post site

Providing more context to the practice of commissioning and selling student papers, the website of CBC Radio carries a recording of an interview with an unnamed woman who used to write term papers for students to earn extra money.
Full audio report on the CBC Radio site