U of cheating: This week in Maclean's

    With more than half of Canadian university students cheating, it's a
    national scandal. Why aren't schools doing more about it?

    Plus, Maclean's learns that the RCMP paid a civilian informant more than
    $4 million to help execute the sting operation that brought down a group
    of alleged terrorists in Toronto last summer.

    TORONTO, Feb. 1 /CNW/ - Universities are in the business of producing
graduates - the doctors who will heal us, the engineers who build our bridges
and the CEOs who will generate our wealth. The degrees they confer are the
university's certificate that a graduate has been tested and deemed suitable
by appropriate authorities. Yet a recent University of Guelph study has
discovered that more than half the student body in Canada is cheating its way
through school. There is no sense of urgency around the problem.
    There is mounting evidence that a lack of integrity in the university
system will have a far-reaching effect on our economy in the years to come.
Consider the following facts relating to the great university cheating
scandal:

    -   53% of all students admit to serious cheating in written work
    -   doctors disciplined by state medical boards are three times more
        likely to have been singled out at med school for bad behaviour
    -   56% of all business students admit to cheating
    -   at the University of Toronto, instances of plagiarism rose from just
        92 a decade ago to 298 in the 2003-2004 school year
    -   44% of profs said they didn't report students caught cheating

    Students have always misbehaved you say? When put in historical context,
the numbers for academic integrity across North America show cheating is on a
steady rise. Universities, apparently not convinced that cheating has reached
crisis proportions, offer little but token anti-plagiarism policies and
ineffective ethics campaigns to assuage critics.

    The four-million dollar rat

    The RCMP paid a civilian informant more than $4 million to help execute
the sting operation that brought down a group of alleged terrorists in Toronto
last summer, Maclean's has learned. The well-known member of the city's Muslim
community was hired by the Mounties just weeks before the arrests - and only
after some shrewd negotiations. In fact, the 28-year-old businessman
originally demanded more than $15 million for his covert services. He
eventually settled on a deal worth at least $4.1 million-including $900,000
for a new house, $250,000 for his parents, and $40,000 to cover his wife's
dental bills.
    Read more in the issue of Maclean's arriving on newsstands nationally
starting today.

    About Maclean's:

    Maclean's is Canada's only national weekly current affairs magazine.
Maclean's enlightens, engages and entertains 2.8 million readers with strong
investigative reporting and exclusive stories from leading journalists in the
fields of international affairs, social issues, national politics, business
and culture. Visit www.macleans.ca.

For further information: Suneel Khanna, (416) 764-1219,
suneel.khanna@publishing.rogers.com