Uzbekistan is taking increasingly drastic measures in the fight against college admission exam cheats by ordering cellphone companies to disable some of their services temporarily.
Local news website Gazeta.uz cited three major mobile providers — Beeline, Ucell and UMS — as saying that they temporarily suspended messaging services for five hours on August 1. The time coincided when school-leavers take their all-important tests that decide their long-term future.
The message-blocking practice is now carried out annually and is intended to thwart crafty students hoping to get assistance from accomplices outside the exam hall.
Rampant cheating has been a feature of exam-taking across the former Soviet Union for many decades. Educational authorities appear to be taking the matter more seriously, although some creative souls try to slip through.
Earlier this year, a student in Kazakhstan schemed to help his girlfriend ace her exams by dressing in her clothes and taking her place. The black wig, skirt, eye makeup and pink lipstick were not enough to fool the invigilators, however. Police were called in, leading to the young man facing charges of fraud.
Exam-takers in Uzbekistan are, like most places in the world, forbidden from bringing in their phone, but that has not deterred the ingenious in the past.
One website, Uz24, explains how some students have circumvented the ban by taking their mobile phones apart and distributing the components in various pockets for later assembly. Others simply hide their phones in toilets or tape them under conveniently located tables, if they know in advance where they are to be seated.
Invigilators also need to keep their eyes peeled for implausible hairdos, which can be used as hiding places. In 2012, a girl in the central Kazakhstan city of Karaganda turned up in an enormous beehive that she had used to conceal a mobile phone. Uz24 said that some girls in Uzbekistan have been known to hide crib notes in “Renaissance-style” hairstyles.
If many feel the need to take shortcuts in life-deciding tests, it may have a lot to do with the parlous state of the education system in much of Central Asia. Anecdotal evidence of bribery of badly paid teachers is legion. As a result, the system prepares students poorly for the rigors of one of life’s most stressful experiences.
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