In order to thwart a mass epidemic of cheating by students taking their school leaving exams, Algeria shut down the internet for up to three hours a day this week – for everyone.
The public telephone operator Algérie Telecom said it cut internet services “in compliance with instructions from the government ... to ensure high school diploma tests run smoothly” after a joint decision by the telecommunications and education ministers.
It published a timetable of the shutdown schedule: three one-hour blackouts, coinciding with the first hour of each baccalaureate exam, on Wednesday, and two each on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Algeria's education minister, Nouria Benghabrit, has said: "Unfortunately, it seems other solutions do not work. We have to do this – it’s a case of force majeure. We realise a blackout is a big step. But we can’t just do nothing."
Cheating among the more than 700,000 students who take Algeria’s baccalaureate exam was so widespread in 2016 that the education ministry declared several exams void and ordered more than 500,000 resits using new question papers.
To the delight of large numbers of latecomers, questions and answers had begun appearing on social media before or just after the start of each exam. Thirty-one people were arrested, including several education ministry employees.
