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SOCIAL NETWORKS HAVE been temporarily blocked throughout Algeria in an effort to stop students cheating in high school exams.
The decision comes after leaked papers forced over 500,000 students to resit their final tests on Sunday.
Facebook and Twitter have been blocked since late Saturday and are to remain inaccessible to millions of Algerians until after the last test on Thursday, a telecom source told AFP.
The exams are known as “the baccalaureate” and are the equivalent of the Leaving Cert in secondary school in Ireland.
The decision “is directly linked to the baccalaureate” and aimed at “protecting students from falling prey to fake questions” posted online, the source said.
What the experts say
“The authorities have chosen the simplest solution,” said information technology expert Younes Grar.
He said the leaks could have been prevented if the authorities had chosen to encrypt the exam questions and printed them at exam centres instead of transporting hard copies across the country.
“The decision to block social networks penalises millions of Internet users,” he said.
According to official estimates, 18 million Algerians out of a population of 40 million are active on the Internet and social networks.
On Sunday some users said they faced difficulties accessing websites, including Google, although authorities had said only social networks would be blocked.
Dozens of people, including the heads of national exam centres and teachers, were arrested this month on suspicions of leaking the final exam papers.
The leaks have sparked outrage in the oil-rich country. Education Minister Nouria Benghebrit broke down in tears in public this month when she was told of the leak.
A police statement carried by Algeria’s APS news agency on June 7 said cyber-crime investigators had identified individuals who had “published (exam) material on social networks” as well as those who facilitated the leak.
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@the journal:
There appears to be auto play video ads on some articles, please get rid of them or the app will be unusable!
It’s your YouTube settings that’s doing the auto play no??
Google it before you red thumb folks
Never!
Seems that way John lol
Pretty sure nobody knows how to open a VPN and use proxy sites…
Or simply go to whatever forum or blog decides to host the files instead
Imagine if all the leaving cert students in Ireland had to re-sit the exams. Megaluf would plunge into an economic depression.
Actually not a bad idea. When I was in university I could not believe how easy and widespread cheating was in this country.
Strange how some schools here in Ireland seem to perform consistently higher than those with similar pupil and teacher profiles in state exams. Just saying…
The schools that perform better have always done so.. Social media is a relatively new phenomenon. Just saying.
John
Name an example of a school with the same profile of teachers, students and equipment that is outperforming another. Or is perhaps one of those wonderful references that continually appear on the journal which is simply made up by the poster
Does that really matter when the standard of education has eroded so much? Universities where a passing mark is 35 or 40%. You can even fall 1 course and pass through exemption if you passed the other 4. It’s a joke.
Yes Rebecca…the nuns and priests have always had friends in the inspectorate…
That sounds like a proxy idea! ;-)
have your say