Phone exam cheat arrested

There have also been concerns over internet plagiarism

A student in Sri Lanka who used a mobile phone to cheat in an exam has been arrested.

The student had been discovered by invigilators using a hands-free phone kit to receive information during an A-level exam.

In Sri Lanka, cheating in exams can be a criminal offence - and the pupil has been arrested after being handed over to the police by school authorities.

The pupil, who as a juvenile is not being named, had hidden the phone beneath bandages on his arm, which he claimed had been placed there by doctors treating an injury.

The microphone was hidden beneath his shirt and the earphone was concealed in his hand.

"He would cover his ear with his palm and get instructions to answer the A-level paper," said the police.

Technology

An academic study on cheating, published last year by Gregory Cizek, associate professor of education at the University of North Carolina, concluded that between 3% to 5% of exam candidates are cheating - with very few of these being caught.

This observed that cheating was a recurrent feature of any exam system - and that it made use of whatever technology was available.

Infra-red messaging and laser pens had been used by cheats - and where differences in time-zones made it possible, cheats had been using fax machines to gain exam papers in advance.

Where course work contributes to exam grades, such as in A-level and at degree level, there has been concerns about students using the internet to cheat.

Essays have been traded on the internet raising worries that students are submitting other people's work.

In response, universities have been offered anti-plagiarism software, designed to detect such attempts at cheating.