Gamal Nkrumah examines the ramifications of the scandalous leaking to students of secondary school final exam papers and public disdain with the country's dysfunctional educational system Rational debating points are hard to hear above the din of hysterical students and parents fretting over the results of the most dreaded of examinations in Egypt, the thanaweya aama, or national secondary school certificate. Putting profitability before principles, a scandal of unprecedented dimensions has erupted in Upper Egypt and promises to dominate the headlines for weeks to come. The Egyptian government is treating the matter with utmost gravity. "We are determined to bring the culprits to book," Governor of Minya General Ahmed Diaaeddin told Al-Ahram Weekly. Investigations are currently underway. The official daily Al-Ahram broke the story last week, itself an indication of the seriousness with which the government regards this matter. According to independent dailies such as Al-Dostour and Al-Masry Al-Yom, the exam samples were reportedly sold for LE800 each, just one more example of rampant corruption. A racket is believed to extort money from students by offering them exact copies of exam papers at exorbitant prices. Al-Dostour likewise disclosed that special, ad hoc thanaweya aama committees had been created to specifically scrutinise the exam results and academic performance of the children of senior officials sitting the exam in Minya. There were also unsubstantiated reports that two daughters of Minya's Abu Qurqas constituency MP Magdi El-Saadawy, Samar and Sherine, were charged with selling exam paper samples, together with a suspect in the Minya provincial Education Administration. They are allegedly the main culprits behind the leaked exam samples, but they claim they are scapegoats in a much more complex subterfuge. Al-Ahram correspondent in Minya Haggag El-Husseini received death threats from parents of students who bought the exam samples, many of them reputed to be members of the security forces, because he was the first correspondent to investigate the story. "It is clear that high-level officials and state security personnel are involved in this particular scandal and that they are in tacit connivance with the perpetrators of the crime. I do not fear these threats and shall continue with my investigations," El-Husseini told the Weekly. He claimed that many of those involved in the scandal were members of the police and the state security apparatus in Minya governorate. Meanwhile, Tuesday witnessed profound developments as security forces in Minya arrested the head of the committee of the serendipitously-named Abnaa Al-Thawra (Sons of the Revolution) School in Bani Mazar, Minya. The principles of the 52 July Revolution had obviously been ignominiously jettisoned in this scandal. It was also disclosed that Ezzat Khalil Anwar Saleh, the headmaster of Abnoub School in the neighbouring Assiut governorate was arrested and charged with leaking exam samples. All in all, eight specialised committees for sons and daughters of senior provincial officials in Minya, including Maghagha Hospital -- one of the most important medical centres in the governorate -- were implicated in the exam scam. A student who is incapacitated can have a special committee formed to supervised him/her while they sit the exam. This allows them to receive the answers illegally, a phenomenon that apparently has been going on for years, especially among the children of senior provincial officials. "This kind of disgraceful opprobrium is the result of 27 years of deplorable emergency laws which give state security officers unconstrained powers," a Ministry of Education senior official told the Weekly on condition of anonymity. In spite of the obvious embroilment of the state security forces in this particular swindle the Egyptian authorities launched an investigation into how secondary school final exam papers were leaked to some students. The irony is that sons and daughters of highly- placed officials were ostensibly behind the cheating racket. At any rate, the prosecutor- general is directly overseeing the investigation, and as the Weekly went to press at least 15 suspects had already been detained and the Minister of Education Yosri El-Gamal assured that nobody is above suspicion or above the law. Whoever the culprits were they were to be brought to book. Police arrested suspects, but one particularly important suspect Ayman Rabei is on the run. Precise details about his position, the nature of his work, his exact role in the affair and his whereabouts are as yet unknown. But, he is believed to be in hiding in Alexandria. Ministry of Education officials would neither confirm nor deny these reports, insisting that investigations currently underway will reveal the truth. These details, they insist, will be clarified soon. Public confidence in the educational system has plummeted to an all-time low. The preoccupation by the press of this particular incident has aroused public interest. The credibility of the state educational system has long been undermined by reports of organised cheating on an unprecedented scale. What is new is that the state security apparatus has been identified as a key player in one of the most contentious social concerns in contemporary Egypt -- education. Parents in Egypt pay millions of pounds in order for their sons and daughters to get the grades required for them to enter prestigious colleges such as the faculties of engineering, medicine, pharmacy and political science. Certain officials downplay the whole affair, and warn of the demoralising impact of the case as thousands of students are still sitting exams. "This is an isolated incident. It is sheer coincidence that it happened in Minya. It is not such a widespread phenomenon as the media is making it out to be. It was a coincidence that those who sold the exam papers were caught red-handed in Minya, but I do not believe that this is a national phenomena," Assistant Minister of Education Reda Abu Serei told the Weekly. "The media must be more responsible as there are tremendously demoralising and damaging psychological implications for students who are yet to sit for their exams. It must be very stressful for them to read about this incident at the moment. The media bombards us day and night with a string of stories related to this particular scandal. It is treating it as if it is some kind of soap opera," Abu-Serei lamented. Both the independent and official papers have picked up on the subject. Satellite television channels have also exhaustively tackled the affair. Presenter Mona El-Shazli's popular Al-Ashera Masaan on Dream TV conducted a special publicised television interview with Minister of Education El-Gamal. He told El-Shazli that if need be fresh exams would be held at a latter date. "That, of course, would be a solution of the last resort. But, if it is proven without a shadow of doubt that many students did actually buy copies of the exam papers and as a result scored higher grades, then a fresh round of exams would be held," El-Gamal said. The programme galvanised viewers, and many students and their parents were glued to their television sets. This is not the first time that such incidents occurred, but this year the contentious issue has received considerable attention. But why did this particular scandal hit Minya and not any of the 27 other governorates in the country? "This is not a problem exclusive to Minya. This particular problem is prevalent all over the country and in all governorates without exception. The difference is that authorities in Minya were quick to act and did not bury their heads in the sand and turn a blind eye to the problem as some other officials in other governorates do," explained a Ministry of Education official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Things are better than they were five years ago, but they are still pretty awful," explained Ahmed, a University of Cairo student whose sister Awatef had a dreadful experience with the exams this year. "The exam determines your entire future. Everything depends on it. That is why students are frantic and are ready to pay dearly for copies of the exams," Ahmed added. "Questions of morality do not come into this. Students do not bother about whether they are cheating or not. They simply are so desperate to get good grades that they are prepared to do anything," he concluded. Several other secondary students interviewed by the Weekly echoed Ahmed's viewpoint. Others protested against what they felt was an unfair advantage by students who could afford to pay exorbitant prices for the exam samples. "The poorer students who could not afford to pay lost out, some failed simply because they could not afford to cheat," sobbed a distraught Amina. She complained bitterly about the unfairness of corruption and nepotism that she said were endemic in the Egyptian educational system. It reflects the general situation in the country at large. Another issue that outraged students and parents alike was that the exams themselves were riddled with factual errors and printed unclearly. Even more bewildering was that unlike in previous years, when the thanaweya aama exams were based on the traditional methods of learning by rote, this year they were ostensibly based on logic and deduction. The new method and style of examination took the students by surprise and led to a deepening of their state of utter demoralisation. El-Gamal promptly sacked those responsible for the scandal. And, he decided to form a committee to look into the affair. However, several MPs after a heated parliamentary debate, instead, called for his resignation. The matter is complicated by the fact that the father of two of the accused students, MP El-Saadawy, is a member of the ruling National Democratic Party who has consistently uncovered police and state security atrocities in Minya governorate, one of the most restless parts of the country where Islamists are particularly active and sectarian violence is rife.
