On the early hours of Saturday, before high school students sat for the thanaweyya amma dynamics exam, screenshots of the exam’s questions and answers were published on the Facebook page ‘Belghesh Etgamaana’.
The exam was cancelled on 26 June after it was leaked for the first time.
The Ministry of Education denied the leak of the dynamics exam─part of the mathematics exam─in a statement on Saturday morning.
“A little while ago, the dynamics exam took place for secondary school students. The ministry’s central operations room didn’t report any leaks until the beginning of the aforementioned exam,” the statement read.
Similarly, a member of the parliament’s Education Committee, Magda Nasr, denied that the dynamics exam was leaked, arguing that the versions of the exam circulating on social media were published after the exam began.
“The exam [questions and answers] were published after its beginning. This means that students published it via smartphone. This is considered ‘cheating’ not ‘leaking’,” she told Daily News Egypt on Saturday.
The parliament’s Education Committee has made recommendations to be presented to the government. The recommendations included drafting new legislations that reshuffle the university admissions system and amending penal codes to include articles that toughen punishment for involvement in leaking exams, Nasr explained.
The committee blames not only the Education Ministry, but the whole cabinet for the recent exam leaks.
Since the beginning of the exam season in early June, all exams have been leaked via social media, either prior to or during the exams.
Early calls have been made by students for Education Minister El-Helaly El-Sherbiny’s dismissal, and they were echoed in the House of Representatives. However, after the summoning of the minister for questioning in the house, the members of parliament withdrew the calls.
MP Gharib Hassan told Daily News Egypt that after the minister’s summoning, the mood towards his performance changed. Depicting El-Sherbiny as a “failure” and the whole crisis as a “scandal” became less popular after the minister explained the gravity of corruption in the ministry that causes the leaks, according to Hassan.
“He told us that a secret meeting in his office with only three ministry officials regarding the exam crisis was leaked minutes after its conclusion,” Hassan said.
Hundreds of students have protested the ministry’s policies facing the crisis since last Sunday, after the dynamics exam was cancelled. The main demand of the protesters is for the dismissal of El-Sherbiny.
A major protest at the ministry’s headquarter in Downtown Cairo was dispersed by security forces, and a dozen of students were briefly detained over the protest.
