The statements in this article are based on reliable sources and are repeated at the end of this article
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When you think of Africa, what industry comes to mind? Is it the hard-working plantation industry, the extremely backward industry, or the "Spring and Autumn Period" of land grabbing with the warlords.
And in such a country called Kenya, they have developed a very peculiar but thriving new industry, that is, "helping poor students in Europe and the United States to write papers". [Listen to the song]
01 Contract cheating
In fact, this kind of "essay writer" behavior is not uncommon in the eyes of many people, but it is true that it can become an industrial chain connecting the world like Kenya.
Most of these writers have joined so-called "companies" that are looking for recent college students and even some graduate students who can become potential customers as long as they need to write papers.
Of course, this kind of behavior is naturally a kind of cheating, and some schools in Europe and the United States call it "contract cheating", which specifically refers to the behavior of spending money to find someone to write the paper on behalf of you, and you will be expelled if you are basically discovered.
It stands to reason that this kind of thing is generally sneaky and often appears in the group chats of some social software, but those so-called "companies" are not like this, they directly build websites to do business.
As the saying goes, demand determines the market, and these "contract cheating" businesses not only did not go out of business at a loss, but gained the fanatical pursuit of many students in Europe and the United States, and there are 5,000 gunmen in a Facebook ghostwriting group, and they are just one of the institutions.
These gunmen also have a decent name for "ghostwriters", and this act is called "academic writing", and their prices are quite expensive in addition to such a huge demand.
According to media reports, such a paper ghostwriter can basically reach about 20 to 50 US dollars per page, and the monthly salary of an ordinary "ghostwriter" will reach more than 7,000 yuan.
With such a huge market, it is natural that many employees are needed to serve, and according to the Financial Times:
They surveyed three of the world's largest ghostwriting sites: Peachy Essay, Edubirdie, and UK Essays, and found that the majority of the employees here are from Kenya.
According to the survey, 43.4% of these ghostwriting orders come from Kenya, followed by the United States, with only about 31.6%, and Kenya's population is only about one-sixth of that of the United States.
The Financial Times even attached its own opinion: as long as you have purchased an essay writing service, it is likely to be from Kenya.
And this small country, which looks very ordinary, and is not even rich, has become the world's factory to save the scumbag and write "academic papers" on behalf of them.
Kenya is generating billions of dollars in profits from this new industry alone, and it is still on a very strong upward trend, which is a very good job for many Kenyans.
Many people even took it as a full-time job, including many local teachers and professors, according to whom, after five years of work, could earn 150,000 shillings a month, not only bought a house but also carried their own luxury car, even more than many salaried people.
At the same time, after they have created a very considerable performance, they can also be directly promoted to become their own agents, and they can also get a commission by organizing some lower-level writers and assigning them work.
With the development of this industry, they have even opened an online examination business, which can be said to carry out "ghostwriting" to the end, and the reason why Kenya will develop such an industry is also inseparable from their situation.
02 "Excellent Work"
In fact, Kenya's "ghostwriting" industry has only flourished in recent years, and most of the main force of this industry are local young people.
Kenya is located in eastern Africa, and although it is not particularly wealthy, it is quite comfortable compared to many warlords and tribal conflicts.
Kenya also attaches great importance to education, according to 2020 statistics, there are 90,145 schools in this small country, and the literacy rate in the capital Nairobi is as high as 87.1%.
However, Kenya's employment problem is also very serious, because the population is growing too fast and most people are educated, so it is also common for university students to be unemployed after graduation.
And due to the epidemic in recent years, as well as various economic downturns, the wave of unemployment in Kenya has also become more serious, according to statistics, in April 2023, the number of unemployed people in Kenya will reach 2.97 million, and their total population is about 50 million.
Therefore, in such a situation, many young people can only find jobs through other channels, including "ghostwriting", and their exposure to this industry is basically based on word of mouth.
In fact, most companies in Kenya don't have high salaries, and if someone tells them that there is a job that only requires writing papers on the computer and can make a pretty good profit, then it will definitely attract a lot of people.
Many of the young people in the area are highly educated, and the local area is also a Commonwealth country, which also gives them the ability to adapt to the job, if you charge $25 to $50 per page, an average employee can basically get a monthly salary of 2,000 yuan.
Of course, this work is not as easy as imagined, first of all, writing a thesis itself is a rather difficult job, otherwise there would not be so many people looking for ghostwriting.
At the same time, they accept so much work, naturally they have to ensure a certain completion rate, and one young Kenyan can even write a full 15-page paper a day to increase the amount of work he has completed.
And this work has also developed a perfect rules and regulations, as long as your article is well written and completed, you can be promoted and raised, and even many companies will buy some accounts with a very good reputation at a high price.
These "ghostwriting" accounts, which have won repeated five-star praise, have become a popular choice in themselves, and the unit price of each paper is higher than that of ordinary drugs, so there will be people who will specially cultivate some "high-quality accounts".
A young man from Kenya said that he has 3 excellent accounts in his hands, he mainly makes one of them, and then gives the rest to the "order group", assuming that the price of the article on the premium account is 25 US dollars per page, he only needs to pay 50 cents to others.
This kind of "second-hand trafficker" behavior is not a minority, and their targets are basically fresh graduates, and even some part-time students in school.
However, in fact, the work in their hands is also likely to be handed over to them by the "second-hand traffickers" on the American side, and perhaps the Kenyan guy who finally completed the paper could never have dreamed that there were so many people between the tasks he had completed.
However, when countless young Kenyans are struggling to rush into this "blue ocean", there is also a very peculiar phenomenon, that is, although many people make money through "ghostwriting", they choose to continue their studies after getting the money.
03 Pursuit of learning
It sounds ironic that young Kenyans are "ghostwriting" to save money for a higher level of study, after all, their work is actually done by a group of people who are not willing to learn.
Usually these young people work from Monday to Saturday and study on Sundays, and the reason why they do this can be divided into two parts.
Some of them believe that the work is good enough, but it is not long-term and that it is morally and legally vile, so they still want to find a better way out.
But at the same time, they can't give up their lives, after all, it still takes a lot of time and energy to study for exams, so in order to be able to maintain their own survival, this kind of work is a very good choice, and at the same time "ghostwriting", you can also learn a lot of things.
The other part is more representative, and their purpose is naturally to obtain higher returns, after all, the more you know, the easier it is to write, and the unit price of some master's theses and theses of graduates from prestigious universities is higher than that of ordinary ones.
Establishing a highly educated and high-level image for yourself can also better attract users, so that you can get better benefits.
But this is also a helpless move, after all, they themselves know that this work is not decent, and can even be called a "crooked way", but it can bring themselves a pretty good life.
In fact, many Kenyan students themselves know that they are actually at the bottom of the ghostwriting chain, and the money in their hands may only be 1% of the original price.
Even the fruits of their own hard work will end up hanging on many graduation books in Europe and the United States, and those students have more stable jobs with much higher wages than them.
Although some people will console themselves by saying that they have only gained a diploma, we have gained knowledge and skills. But who wouldn't want a better job?
But in any case, such a salary is already very good in Kenya, so there are still many people who join this kind of work, and even the Western media say that Kenya rules the world in this kind of work.
In fact, this situation is also a shock to the academic circles in Europe and the United States, after all, the influx of a large number of fake papers makes them not know whether the grades of these students are watery, especially some well-known universities and many master's degrees.
However, these ghostwriting companies themselves are quite secretive, and it is likely that they themselves do not know the names of the students, so in the end, it is difficult to find out who actually found someone to "ghostwrite".
04 Industry impact
In fact, if this kind of work continues, it is basically a matter of your willingness, at most it may be a headache for teachers and schools, and some young people in Kenya are unbalanced, but in the past two years, the industry has also been impacted.
As some people say, this is not a long-term solution. Especially after the emergence of artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT, the number of orders received by these "ghostwriters" has also decreased.
At the same time, there have been layoffs and cessation of recruitment, and although many higher-level employees are still living on their old jobs, they may not know that they will also be laid off that day, but fortunately, they should have saved a lot of money.
Of course, for many schools, some students would rather find a ghostwriter than write it themselves, let alone after artificial intelligence comes out, so this is still a trouble for them.
Although Kenya, the "world factory of the ghostwriting industry", has made a lot of profits, it is still inseparable from the progress and limitations of science and technology, and it may become more difficult for those young people who are engaged in this work in the future.
But looking at today's world, perhaps difficulties are no longer a group of them.
Sources of information:
[1] Phoenix Weekly - In Kenya, Africa, in search of the essay "The Gunman"
[2] Huanqiu.com - AI Sniping Kenya's "Ghostwriting Gunman"_Xinhua Newspaper-Global
[3] Jiemian News - The world's "paper factory": This African country is making money from European and American college students|Papers_Sina Finance_Sina.com