Egypt cancels high school exam amid leaks

As Egyptian high school students take their final exams this month, the government is facing a wave of criticism and mockery after copies of at least two test papers — and their answers — were leaked on Facebook.

The leaks, which caused one of the tests to be canceled, have resulted in a barrage of criticism of the Education Ministry, and the police and military officers who guard the wax-sealed boxes that the exams are kept in before students take them.

The exams were leaked on a Facebook page by someone, or a group, called Chao Ming (the reason for the Chinese-sounding name is unclear). For the past four years, Chao Ming posted answers during testing, allowing cheating by students flouting a ban on cellphones. This year is believed to be the first time Chao Ming has posted copies of the exams and answers before testing takes place.

Chao Ming has spawned a host of imitators who use Facebook and other online platforms to help students cheat — and taunt the authorities. Some of the sites say they are acting to embarrass the Education Ministry and to change the educational system in Egypt.

The scandal has highlighted disgruntlement with the declining quality of public education in Egypt, but has also drawn contrasts between the government’s bumbling efforts to stanch the leaks and its harsh crackdown on free speech and political freedoms in Egypt.

“The regime can’t protect” a couple of papers, Mina Salib, a political activist in Alexandria, wrote in a Facebook post that was widely liked. “Excuse me, but how are they supposed to protect a country?”

About 570,000 Egyptian high school students are taking the exams, known as Thanaweya Amma tests, which determine admission to state-run universities and institutes. The pressure to succeed is intense, and many describe the tests as a nerve-racking experience that often leaves students crying outside exam centers.

This year’s tests started on June 5 and were due to end on June 28. The Facebook leaks led to the cancellation of a theology exam, which will be held again on June 29.

The police arrested Mohanad Ahmed, an 18-year-old high school student from Alexandria, who later appeared on television confessing to running “Chao Ming helps Thanaweya Amma cheat,” the series of Facebook pages that posted the exams. But many students and parents have questioned whether Mr. Ahmed is the originator of the leaks because of widespread doubts about the official narrative.

Experts say the quality of state education in Egypt has declined in recent years because of overcrowded classrooms, poorly trained teachers and exams based on rote learning. At the same time, the importance of the Thanaweya Amma tests has increased because greater economic hardship in the country has put private colleges beyond the reach of many Egyptians.

In Parliament on June 11, the education minister, El-Hilali El-Sherbini, blamed the leaks on the use of electronic devices such as credit cards that can function as telephones, surgically inserted headphones and high-tech reading glasses.

Mr. Sherbini proposed cutting internet access across Egypt for an hour before all exams, to counter future leaks, and disrupting cellphone signals in examination halls, according to several lawmakers present at the session.

“It was absurd,” said one lawmaker, Ghareeb Hassaan.

Another, Gamal Shiha, said the education minister’s list of high-tech devices seemed to be a diversionary tactic. “He just kept talking and talking about this internet thing for half an hour,” Mr. Shiha said.

Cellphones are forbidden in Egyptian exam halls, but the Education Ministry acknowledges that the ban is hard to enforce. “They hide the phones in sensitive areas,” Bashir Hassan, the ministry’s spokesman, said. “No one is going to search those areas, so what are we supposed to do about it?”

Police and education officials said 25 people had been arrested in connection with the leaks and for helping with cheating in general. They include seven Education Ministry employees and four officials from the country’s seat of Sunni scholarship, Al-Azhar. If convicted, they could be sentenced to a year in prison and fined up to about $5,600.

But many students said they believed that the police had not found the true culprit, whom some had lionized as a sort of Robin Hood for exam cheaters. They said they expected further leaks to surface.

On Wednesday, local news outlets reported that the administrator of another Chao Ming page had gone live on Facebook, wearing a mask.

“I don’t fear arrest,” he was reported as saying. “This is going to happen again next year unless the education system in Egypt improves.