The number of pupils caught plagiarising on university applications has doubled in the past two years.
The number of personal statements flagged for plagiarism by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) reached 7,300 last year, up from 3,559 two years ago.
International students accounted for one in five applications to British universities but represented three in five cases of plagiarism. The most prolific countries of origin for plagiarism, after the UK, were India, Nigeria, Romania and China.
There had been a 15 per cent rise in plagiarism in the year since ChatGPT, the generative artificial intelligence programme, was launched. However, Wayne Holmes, a professor of AI and education at University College London (UCL), said it was unlikely to be behind the rise.
