GMIT exam cheat probe costs soar to €350,000
The cost of the ongoing unprecedented external investigation into cheating at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) continues to spiral – and there’s no end in sight.
New figures reveal GMIT has so far spent an astonishing €352,693 on the cheating and cover-up investigation, which it ordered almost two and a half years ago, in April 2011, after a series of reputation-damaging revelations.
According to documents released this week to the Galway City Tribune, under the Freedom of Information Act, most of the money is being paid to the external investigators and to legal representatives.
The amount would cover the annual cost of wages of several lectures at the institute; or the tuition fees for scores of GMIT students.
Last December GMIT President Michael Carmody said the investigation team would complete its work in “early 2013”, but yesterday that was revised to “before the end of October”. And that means the costs will continue to mount.
The incident of plagiarism under investigation relates to a masters student at the School of Business in 2009. The external investigation, which is also charged with exposing whether the cheating incident was “suppressed, concealed or covered up” by staff within the institute, was launched in April 2011.
The investigative stage of the process is complete but the final report has yet to be furnished to GMIT, according to Mr Carmody. It appears there are legal diffiulties that have to be ironed out. The cost of the investigation soared by €128,000 since August 2012.
The bulk of expenditure was paid to the two-person independent investigation team of Professor Bairbre Redmond, the deputy registrar for teaching and learning at University College Dublin, and Ed Madden, a barrister and mediator with 30 years experience of working in industrial relations and human resources.
Mr Madden has to date earned €180,935 in fees for conducting the investigation. Prof Redmond, who took unpaid leave from UCD in order to complete the inquiry, has earned €41,153.
The investigation was launched following a series of revelations in this newspaper about plagiarism at GMIT, and discontent among teaching staff about standards.
The incident involves a Masters student in the School of Business who obtained an instructor’s manual – which contained model answers to assessment questions – and used the material to cheat.
The instructor manual was legitimately accessible by academic staff online only and is protected by a password. It is alleged the password was passed by a lecturer to the student.
For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.