Egypt’s high school (Thanaweyya Amma) students taking final exams will undergo three-stage screening before entering exam venues, according to Reda Higazi, Deputy Minister of Education.
The screenings, which will take place using handheld metal detectors, will be enforced to ensure no student enters exams with mobile phones that can be used in cheating.
The Ministry of Education held, on Saturday, an urgent virtual meeting with the heads of exam committees across the country, as well as members of the Central Operations Room overseeing the examinations.
During the meeting, the participants discussed ways of combating the leaking of exam papers on social media platforms. This included a discussion on possible ways to prevent students from covertly taking their mobile phones inside exam venues.
Higazi said that the students will be checked with a metal detector when they enter the school. This will be followed by further checks, also with metal detectors, both after entering the exam venues, and about 30 minutes before exams start.
The meeting also aimed to put in place strict measures to be followed during the exams. These measures are to prevent students from photocopying the exam papers and publishing them on social media for other students to cheat from.
The meeting also tackled procedures that every invigilator should follow to detect students who have succeeded to sneak their mobile phones inside the exam venues.
The Ministry of Education emphasised that the invigilators overseeing exams will take full responsibility if students are found to have succeeded in leaking the exam papers using phones after going through the individual checks.
The ministry pointed out that it had identified 350 students who had signed up to about 65 groups on different social media platforms that aid cheating. This was in addition to their monitoring seven cases which equipment and headphones used in cheating were sold. The ministry asserted that all legal measures will be taken against the violators.
