Wolverhampton University cheats kicked off courses

Dozens of students at Wolverhampton University have been kicked off courses in the last four years for misconduct and bad discipline, figures revealed today.

Cheating in exams and plagiarism were among the offences for which students were removed from their courses.

And Jon Elsmore, Dean of Students at the University of Wolverhampton, said: "We only exclude students in the most serious of cases, and we treat these issues very carefully and considerately. Exclusion is always the last resort."

He said the number of excluded students was relatively small in comparison to the student population of around 23,000.

In the academic year 2009-10, nine students were excluded for cheating in exams, plagiarism and collusion.

Two were removed from an information technology course, one from a finance and accountancy Master's degree and another from a biomedical science course.

A further four were kicked off nursing, accounting, and computer courses for discipline offences, which could include criminal offences.

During the academic year 2008-09, eight students were removed from degree courses including microbiology, French, law, creative and professional writing and quantity surveying.

These were for repeatedly poor misconduct and there was one incident of serious misconduct. In the same year, one pharmacy and one nursing student were kicked out of the university following discipline proceedings.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, show that in 2007-08, five students were excluded for academic misconduct following offences on courses in IT, business and finance law. A further four were removed for discipline offences.

Earlier this month, the Express & Star reported that the University of Wolverhampton was among the worst in the country for students cheating.

An investigation revealed that academic misconduct was soaring, with Wolverhampton eighth in the top 10 universities for cheats.

Most involved plagiarism but there were also reports of students buying coursework from internet-based companies, and trying to bribe lecturers.