cheating : Case study: Whose responsibility is this?

Barry was a tutor who had just interviewed a potential student for a course. During the interview he discovered that the new student’s previous qualification had been acquired as result of a fraud. The qualification had been obtained from a college X that had  allowed one of their assessors to sign a form saying that the student had undergone work experience when he had not in fact done so. This student had not done a work placement, neither had any of his class colleagues and so he had not realised it was course requirement. When his  previous assessor had signed off his work he had assumed this meant that all was acceptable.  The student was shocked when Barry told him his previous college X appeared to have committed a fraud and he said, “That means that my qualification is like an empty shell, what’s going to happen next?” . If you were Barry’s  mentor what advice would you give Barry ? Should he:-

a) Contact the College X where the fraud had taken place and tell the quality manager
b) Contact the Awarding Body that provided the certificate and inform their external quality reviewers

c) Contact another standard setting body like the College funders – the Skills Funding Agency or the college inspectors OFSTED

d) Do nothing and tell nobody about this as you don’t want the student to suffer any detriment

e) Contact a professional standards body like the Institute for Learning for advice

Last modified: 3 June 2013