Should I report this plagiarism, and if so how?

[Tatosquish]

A friend’s child is at university, has mild to moderate reading difficulties which would be supported by university . Friend always assists with essays, assignments etc, and is perfectly happy to tell other people this. Has always had masses of input into child’s school work at GCSE and A level. I know that at university this level of assistance is considered cheating and plagiarism, and devalues degree qualifications. Should I dob them in? If so, how?

None of what you described is plagiarism. And it's really none of your business. If you want to help the family I would mention to parent that she probably shouldn't tell people she's helping as she may be unfairly judged on it.

Absolutely this. How mean to even consider taking such action in relation to a child with reading difficulties. And how very strange! Some friend you are 😏

I had a case like this - there was an essay in which a pretty poorly-performing student wrote an essay which careered between barely literate - particularly in clarity of argument - and lucid prose and cogent argument. It was clearly a case of plagiarism (that contrast is still one of the best 'tells' of plagiarism).

When we investigated, we found an outraged parent, who was shocked that her work with her DC was seen as cheating. She was appalling (had to be physically barred from trying to enter my office where we were interviewing the student), but we had to deal with the essay in front of us, and we failed the essay, on grounds of academic bad practice. I had the university's Assistant Registrar in the room, to see that our regs were followed to the nth degree.

That was 20 years ago, and I imagine that mother is still outraged that we saw her helicoptering "help" as sanctionable.

If you're not a member of staff of the university in question, there's very little - indeed, nothing - you can do. But that parent is cheating, and also cheating her DC of their future. A parent won't be able to do exams for their DC, nor do their job for them.

It's terrible parenting. Utterly undermining a young adult child from learning by making mistakes.

No, this is not what is happening.

Allegedly, what is happening is cheating and bad academic practice. It is not the student's own work.

There's nothing @Tatosquish can do, except remonstrate with her friend that her friend is not helping her DC, and is actually encouraging the DC to cheat.

Universities have clear and equitable processes to help students with disabilities - a student with dyslexia is offered a range of mitigations and assistance, depending on the severity of the learning disability.

@EasterIsland The thing is, I can’t see anything in the OP’s posts to confirm that the situation she wants to report is anything like as egregious as the one you encountered.

I mean, yes, it might be that bad. But from the relatively little the OP has actually said, it could equally be that her friend is providing an acceptable amount of support.

The reason most on this thread are resistant to the OP’s narrative is that the talk of “dobbing in” and the withholding of context/detail suggests there’s a personal grudge driving her.