For the better part of Monday evening, social media platforms were awash with one of the day’s most circulated story where a leading US media house, CBS TELEVISION, released a shocking investigative report into the thriving Academic Writing business in Kenya.
The investigative piece exposed how youthful and jobless Kenyan graduates have built a multimillion empire from completing essays and other assignments on their behalf of American students who willingly pay too dollar amounts for the services.
According to the report done by CBS reporter Debra Patta who flew into the country to speak to some of the writers, a section of Kenyan youth earn millions of dollars from academic writing through a technique dubbed “contract cheating.”
To make it work, Kenyan writers are usually given login details to various student portals of the American learners which subsequently gives them access to the amenities like the Campus library, where they can study for the exams before sitting them on their behalf.
During an interview, one such Kenyan writer confessed he had been doing exams and other academic writing work for several years on behalf of an American student.
He revealed that the guy handsomely paid him to do his undergraduate degree as well as his master’s degree.
Just like most of the interviewees who appeared on the investigative piece, he cited financial struggles as the his motivation into joining the fast-growing industry.
He lamented that he had been unsuccessfully searching for work since he finished school.
“You can’t steal and so you have to find something to do for yourself. It is not really something you would be proud of to tell people that you help others cheat,” he says in the interview.
He goes on to reveal how some Kenyan youth like himself have made a real business with earnings of up to Sh200K every month.
In fact, some of the writers are so good with their work to the extent that American students sometimes show concern that their performances are too excellent, with fears of raising suspicion.
The pandemic has seen an explosion in online education — but also cheating.
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) July 26, 2021
A @CBSNews investigation found an industry in Kenya that thrives on American students who pay to cheat for college-level assignments. @Debora_Patta spoke to some of those Kenyan writers. pic.twitter.com/YPO5KvGfv1
As the clip kept doing rounds, netizens joined in to share their views on the report which was prompted by numerous complaints by the US authorities and scholars.
Some agreed that the said practice amounts to academic cheating while others simply expressed fears that the investigative report could leave the multimillion industry which feeds thousands of Kenyan youths exposed.
Here is what some of them had to say.
