CAIRO — High school exam seasons in Egypt are often accompanied by exam leaks — a phenomenon that has become a major challenge to the successive Egyptian governments, despite several attempts to confront it. The government transports exam questions in a military helicopter from the printers affiliated with the Ministry of Education, whose locations remain a secret. This procedure is done under the auspices of the Egyptian armed forces to prevent the leaking of the exams. Also, the Ministry of Education has started using electronic detectors to search the students for mobile phones to prevent the exam questions from being leaked on social media just minutes after the exam starts. The Ministry of Interior is working to secure students’ conduct during examinations, amid a phenomenon of mass cheating.

In the past, students have threatened to beat proctors, assault them, and, in 2014, exam proctors were held at gunpoint in the city of Asyut. Amid all of this, some people on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter continue to defy the Egyptian Ministry of Education.

In the first hours of exam day, and especially in high school exit exams, there is a public online outcry encouraging students to upload the exam questions onto Facebook and Twitter. Once the exam starts, the work starts on developing an answer sheet that allows everyone to easily pass the exam. There are also instructions and tips published on social media, using innovative ways to hide mobile phones used in the cheating process. Students involved justify their actions by claiming that the ministry’s exams are unreasonably difficult.

The Ministry of Education has so far been unable to control this phenomenon, despite its attempts to close many of the pages and accounts that leak exam questions, and despite establishing a special government group to fight fraudulence on Facebook by immediately reporting any pages that leak exam questions to close them and arrest their owners.