A University of Johannesburg PhD candidate accused of plagiarism in biblical and Christian studies has been left in limbo for more than two years since he was charged.

Norman Shoko claims the delay is a deliberate effort by the university to frustrate him and drain his finances.

Shoko was charged with plagiarism and academic dishonesty in September 2021. He claims the matter has been handled unfairly and has dragged on for so long because the university has neither evidence against him nor witnesses to prove its charges.

‘I believe I am being made a scapegoat so that the university avoids taking responsibility for its academic system failures,’ he told City Press.

‘What frustrates me most is that the university refuses to issue a letter attesting to the fact that they have failed to conclude the matter so that I can take it to court’.

According to the report of disciplinary committee chairperson Julian Mgiba, it was discovered that the PhD thesis Shoko had submitted contained plagiarised material.

An originality report by Turnitin, a tool used to detect plagiarism, found a similarity index of 45% with other sources and contained copied material in his thesis.

It is also alleged that, when he submitted his revised thesis on around 13 October 2021, the Turnitin report indicated a similarity index of 15% with material in other sources and was demonstrated to contain material that had been copied.

Full City Press report