Cheating services too need to do homework

Cheating in India conjures up images of imposters sitting for examinations or cheating assistants brazenly standing outside the centres passing information. Abroad, the advent of online education — reportedly a $100-billion industry — has made it far easier.

And Indians have benefited from the consequent boom in “essay writing services” and even online course attendance, as their proficiency in English is in inverse proportion to their charges.

So, the pulling down of videos endorsing such unorthodox services from a Ukraine-based education agency will worry those industrious Indians who have been helping lazy high schoolers and college students abroad ace assignments, if not examinations. Only endorsements of the services have fallen foul of internet channel laws and been removed; the services themselves have survived, so their “clients” and “agents” can breathe easy — for a while.


As online education degrees become more widely acceptable, there will be a tightening of supervision. However, cheating in examinations or home assignments can never be eliminated and will, therefore, continue to inspire ingenious new variants.

This first shot across the bow will activate the brains behind these online services to think of new ways to game the system for the benefit of future cheaters. The challenge will be to second guess them.