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01st Jun 2017

One country shut down the internet to stop students cheating in exams

Orlaith Condon

If you were a part of the Leaving Certificate class of 2009, you might remember the massive upset when English paper two was accidentally handed out a day early.

Yes, it was headline news that sent students into a tailspin in their efforts to prepare for a totally new paper.

Well, a similar situation occurred last year in Ethiopia when activists leaked papers for the country’s 12th grade national exams due to a school in the regional state of Oromia being shutdown.

Now, the country’s government has gone to extreme lengths to prevent the same from happening this year and have shut off all internet access in the country.


From 4pm on Tuesday, Ethiopians have been without internet access as students go to sit their exams.

And this isn’t the first time the government has been forced to shut down the nation’s internet.

Last summer, the government did the same thing after someone leaked college entrance exams online.


This type of action is said to be common in many developing countries. Algeria also shut down their country’s access to social media in a bid to prevent cheated in exams.

However, as of yet, there is no way to prevent the auld trip to the bathroom to read the notes you’d written on your thigh earlier that day.