An official source in Egypt's Ministry of Education affirmed that a Thanaweya Amma (general secondary) student from Sharqeya governorate leaked the algebra and solid geometry exam on Sunday to social media pages, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported. The source said that the student was arrested in possession of the smart phone used to leak the exam, and that the supervisors of the exam room are to be suspended and referred to investigation. This is the third exam paper to be leaked this annual testing season. Last week, the Arabic and French exams were posted on social media as well. In recent years, Thanaweya Amma exams have been repeatedly leaked and shared via Facebook and WhatsApp. Last year, Egypt's parliament approved amendments toughening penalties for cheating and other exam violations, including for publishing exam questions and papers and having mobile phones or other wireless devices in examination rooms. Penalties for facilitating exam leaks include hefty fines of EGP 100,000-200,000 and jail terms between two and seven years. In 2017, Egypt also introduced a new national high school exam system named Booklet to reduce the possibility of errors occurring in the correction process and eliminate the risk of leaks. The new system requires students to submit their answers on the question sheet itself, in contrast to the previous system in which answers were written on a separate sheet. More than 650,000 students are taking this year's tests.
