Blow to Thousands of Kenyan Graduates as UK Gov’t Clamps Down on Essay Mills

Thousands of Kenyan graduates who earn a living from academic writing could find themselves on the receiving end after the British government moved to clamp down on essay mills.

Academic writers are usually paid by lazy university students from developed countries to do class assignments or write research papers on their behalf.

Leading global payments company PayPal has announced it will withdraw its platform from essay writing firms in an effort to curb academic cheating.

The decision by PayPal comes after weeks of pressure from the UK government to stop payments for essay mills to curtail academic cheating.

PayPal says it will write to essay-writing companies beginning next week informing them of its decision to stop payments.

“PayPal is working with businesses associated with essay-writing services to ensure our platform is not used to facilitate deceptive and fraudulent practices in education,” PayPal says.

“PayPal will continue to diligently review and take appropriate action on accounts found to be facilitating cheating or otherwise undermining academic integrity,” it adds.

BBC reports that the British government is also piling pressure on other payment firms to withdraw their services as well.

Additionally, 40 UK university vice-chancellors have asked Google and YouTube to shut their services to the essay writing companies.

The British Parliament has also been petitioned to ban essay mills from the UK’s Internet space.

The UK could set precedence for other developed countries to also ban the essay mills.

The move would render jobless the thousands of Kenyan youths involved in the business valued by Forbes at $1 billion. 

“This is a business that operates across national borders so there will need to be an international response,” says PayPal.

The UK has named Kenya as the leading black market for academic cheating by its students.

Reports on the British media indicate doctorate students pay £2,000 (Sh264,000) to £6,000 (Sh790,000) for dissertations.

“Kenya is the hotbed where the writing happens. There is high unemployment and a job working from home is coveted. They have good English and low overheads,” Dr. Thomas Lancaster, a senior fellow at Imperial College, London, was quoted by the British press as saying.