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Ethiopia Turns Off Internet Nationwide as Students Sit Exams (theguardian.com)
Ethiopia shut down the internet yesterday ahead of a scheduled national examination that is underway in the country today. Social media users noted that the internet service was interrupted from around 7 pm on Tuesday -- reportedly to prevent exam leaks. About 1.2 million students are taking the grade 10 national exams, with another 288,000 preparing for the grade 12 university entrance exams that will take place next week. From a report: Outbound traffic from Ethiopia was shutdown around 4pm UK time on Tuesday, according to Google's transparency report, which registered Ethiopian visits to the company's sites plummeting over the evening. By Wednesday afternoon, access still had not been restored. Last year, activists leaked the papers for the country's 12th grade national exams, calling for the postponement of the papers due to a school shutdown in the regional state of Oromia. Now, the government appears to have taken the move to shut down internet access as a preventative measure.
How about they work on the correct problem? I don't think the internet spreading the leaked exams is the issue, it's that the exams are leaked...
Might as well shut down electricity in the whole country to be absolutely sure, huh? Kind of a sign of a backwards government policy (or reflecting the lack of importance of internet/connectivity) when one small problem can cause a whole other system to be shut down...
This is actually a really interesting way to solve a challenging problem (cheating). It's a little crazy, but it's a poor country. I don't completely oppose this. An education system with integrity is extremely important for a country.
Seriously? Shut down the internet for the entire country, *just for exams*?
Sweet pterodactyl projectile diarrhea on a dreidel, how many different kinds of wrong could have gone into a decision as boneheaded as that?
Do businesses in Ethiopia not depend on the internet for anything?