No University of Virginia Honor Code in Algeria
July 5, 2018
Anyone who has a child or young member of their family probably knows about the looming threat of the Internet on cheating. Whether it is the scourge of plagiarism on papers to using phones in class to lookup answers, there seems to be a runaway train in our schools and no way to stop it. Unless, of course, you live in Algeria. We learned more about their fascinating solution to this educational problem from a recent Science Alert story, “A Whole Country Just Turned Off Its Internet to Stop Students from Cheating on Exams.”
For six days, Algeria shut off the Internet so students could take their finals:
“It is of course a big step to take – but the country has a big problem with cheats. In 2016, some 300,000 students had to retake exams after papers were leaked early on the web and circulated around social media.
“Last year attempts were made to restrict access to social media platforms, but ultimately those measures weren’t effective enough – so this year the authorities are going all in. Both cell networks and broadband are getting switched off during the allotted periods.”
While it’s pretty extreme, we like Algeria’s moxy. This is a much more effective way to curb cheating, than say banning wristwatches. Could this method work in a country like America? We’re willing to bet that grownups can’t live without their cat memes long enough to find out.
Patrick Roland, July 5, 2018
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