An international school in Auckland has been stopped from enrolling any more students.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) found students at the Imperial College of New Zealand were being passed - even though some had submitted plagiarised assessments.
Now more than 150 have been told to sit additional tests or face re-checks of their work.
Imperial College of New Zealand teaches international students in business and management.
But after NZQA checked the quality of papers, it was found plagiarism was rife - and so the school's facing sanctions.
"They can no longer enrol new international students until they resolve these issues," says NZQA's Dr Grant Klinkum, deputy chief executive of quality assurance.
The plagiarism issues were identified in the school's business and management programmes.
Seventy-five students doing level 7 diplomas have already been retested and NZQA found many students were not up to scratch.
"Thirty-two percent of those students would have been inappropriately awarded a qualification had it not been for our intervention," Dr Klinkum says.
The school's principal, Kanwalpreet Kaur, says part of the problem was the result of sloppy marking, and she's concerned so many students appear to be cheating.
"It does not go with our motto, because our motto is 'striving for excellence'," she says.
Principal Kaur says new staff have been hired and the school's doing additional training for students.
"For the students now, we have guided them that this is not acceptable at all," she says.
Imperial has faced other challenges; last year it had an 88 percent decline rate for new students because of issues with fraud.
But the principal says it's ceased all partnerships with existing education agents overseas. And NZQA says since its intervention, the school is showing improvements.
In just the past year, NZQA has intervened at 20 different providers. Four schools have been shut down and another 11 institutions have had their ability to enrol students stopped.
But NZQA says overall the level of education being delivered is high.
"A small number of providers are not meeting the quality standards we expect," Dr Klinkum says.
Imperial says it's confident it'll overcome its plagiarism woes and will continue to provide education for international students.
Newshub.
