Against what many Algerians hoped, Algeria resumed what’s quickly becoming an annual ritual of blocking the internet nationwide to thwart a mass epidemic of cheating by students during final exams.
On Sunday, high school seniors in the North African state began their first day of baccalaureate exams, whose results widely shape a student’s academic future.
At 8:30 am, as exam centres opened their doors, the internet went off. Access to social networks and instant messaging, key platforms which reportedly cheating students use to exchange answers to the exams, stopped working.
Internet was temporarily restored Sunday between 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. before being cut again around 2:00 p.m. until 4:30 p.m.
“It’s immature what they are doing. I could not get any work done today which will definitely cost me much,” Ahmed, an Algerian freelancer graphic designer, told The New Arab on Sunday.
Many like Ahmed, missed deadlines for their projects or received a scolding frombosses overseas who did not believe that a country can shut down the internet over a high school exam.