Undercover with a ghostwriter helping uni students cheat for less than $200

Even medical students, who have gone on to become doctors, are using this Chinese run service.

Even medical students, who have gone on to become doctors, are using this Chinese run service.

A ghostwriter who has ­completed thousands of assignments for cashed-up students across Australia’s major univer­sities has blown the whistle on the Chinese company at the ­centre of a vast academic cheating scheme.

The Kenyan man, who has asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals, has revealed how he worked as a ghostwriter for Chinese company Assignment Joy, which for as little as $149 per 1000 words will ­arrange for struggling international students to have their ­assignments fraudulently written for them.

Over more than half a decade, the “academic writer” has penned assignments for bachelor degree and masters students in fields including nursing, health science, education, psychology and business administration for almost every major Australian university.

Dozens of orders and completed university assignments for Australian universities including the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, the University of South Australia, Macquarie University and Torrens University as well as several TAFEs, have been obtained by The Australian.

The ghostwriter said he knew about 50 other writers in the field personally, including several who he subcontracted to do assignments for him.

The multimillion-dollar shadow industry employs thousands of people across Kenya and South Africa because of their proficiency in English and low labour costs.

“It’s all kinds of students but the major market is Chinese foreign students; they’re 60% of the entire market,” he said.

“There are also a lot of foreign students from Malaysia, those countries that don’t have good English.”

Assignment Joy, which for as little as $US100 per 1000 words will arrange for struggling international students to have their assignments fraudulently written for them. Picture: Assignment Joy

Assignment Joy describes itself as an “essay writing service” on its website, which specialises in universities in Britain, Australia, the US, New Zealand and Canada.

The company has listed an ­office address in Jiangsu, north of Shanghai, and claims to have a base in Sydney though there is no evidence to support this.

It also advertises “Australian thesis writing” and lists different prices for the quality of the work, with C grade papers costing just $30 per 250 words, $40 for “B Grade Pro” and $60 for “A Grade PhD”.

“Often a good paper is the key to your success, so choice is more important than hard work,” it says.

In some cases students opt to hand over their login details to their university portal and allow the ghostwriter to handle the ­demands of their entire course on their behalf.

In others, Assignment Joy simply shares the relevant ­material such as lecture slides, ­essential readings, the rubric for the assignment and an order form outlining the word limit via email.

How does it work?

The Australian traced how ­Assignment Joy organised for the ghostwriter to log into one University of Sydney student’s online portal to download course ­material for the education subject Diet and Nutrition for Health and Sport.

Once the ghostwriter had been guided through the security verification via Chinese messaging app WeChat, he was then able to download the information ­required to “discuss the energy demands of an elite level athlete” using “comparison data on the average Australian and the elite athlete”.

After accessing the information he submitted the completed 2500-word paper via email the next day and invoiced Assignment Joy for $197 for his work.

The University of Sydney has confirmed it will investigate this particular case, adding that the university had seen a surge in ­“aggressive activity” from contract cheating companies that had become increasingly brazen since 2019.

The University of Sydney is investigating the case of a 2500-word paper having been written by a ghostwriter employed by Assignment Joy.

“We take all allegations of ­academic misconduct seriously, and act on all cases that come to our attention,” the spokesperson said.

A 2000-word paper on different “learning interventions” strategies for the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Teaching, an outline of an integrated marketing campaign to sell running shoes for Macquarie University and an essay on “legal and ethical scenarios in aged care” for a University of South Australia subject Health Law, Ethics and Policy, are among the fraudulent assignments seen by The Australian.

“If you’ve seen all the things I’ve seen your mind would be blown,” the ghostwriter said.

“You would come to the conclusion that I have come to realise that the education system is just a sham. I have some students who I have worked for since their first year and I’ve done all the assignments until they graduate, just pass and get all the grades.

“The thing that makes me worried is the medical students who have never done even one assignment since their first day.”

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency blocked 40 academic cheating sites last month in a major crackdown on the industry, but Assignment Joy was not included on the list.

The University of Melbourne, Macquarie University, the ­University of Queensland and the University of South Australia all said academic integrity was a high priority, with some confirming there had been a spike in ­contract-cheating during the pandemic.

Assignment Joy did not ­respond to requests for comment.