Iraq Prevents Exam Cheating by Cutting the Entire Internet

There are many ways to prevent cheating in exams, there is the honour system, extra checks, and verifications – or you can go all out like Iraq did last week where it cut off the internet for the entire country for a couple of hours.

What first looked like something that is reminiscent of censorship in the Islamic state, that wasn’t the case according to Dyn Research. Their data showed that the data streams were interrupted between 5:00 and 8:00. The simple answer to why this happened is cheat prevention.

The nationwide school enrollment tests were going on at that time and the internet cut-off was simply to prevent sharing of the papers. The test is crucial for the continued education and thereby a position in the country which highly increases the incentive to cheat, and the simple way to prevent modern cheating is to simply disable the methods of doing so.

It certainly is an effective way of doing so but is it also the right one? What do you think? Is this maybe a method we should start applying in our parts of the world too or is that just taking it all a step too far? Let us know in the comments.