Algeria And Iraq Shut Down Internet To Prevent Exam Cheats

Algeria and Iraq Turn Off Internet To Prevent Exam Cheaters

Very soon, the world over, millions of people at school or colleges are going to be taking their end of year exams. With the proliferation of smart technology though, it can be hard to ensure that there is no cheating going on during the test. Iraq and Algeria, however, have taken a rather extreme step to prevent cheating.

In a report via The Independent, both countries are going to temporarily switch off their internet to ensure that no cheating at exams can happen.

Pull The Plug!

The major exam week in Iraq and Algeria was held last week. In an effort to prevent cheating though, both countries turned off their entire nations internet for 2 hours in the morning. This, solely for the purpose of preventing anyone from trying to cheat on their exam papers.

In addition, it is also reported that Facebook was completely cut off during this time. While this might sound a bit draconian, the governments do actually have a good reason for it.

For the last two years, the high-school final exam papers were leaked online. As such, in order to prevent this from occurring again, the governments decided to take the somewhat extreme, but actually a rather sensible decision.

A Good Idea, But Not Infallible

With this clearly stopping the exam papers being leaked and people getting a head start it is a bit of an extreme measure. I can’t help but think that it would surely have just been simpler to provide extra security. How hard can it be to guard some papers? Either way though, they clearly wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.

The funny thing is it while it was extreme, it seems to have worked. As such, this measure will therefore likely be repeated next year as well.

Now all they need to do is figure out a way to stop people peeping at their neighbour’s answers.

What do you think? Was this a good idea? A bit of an extreme solution? – Let us know in the comments!