Chowrangi

According to Arab News, “Fourteen Egyptians, including officials and parents, were jailed for up to 15 years for involvement in leaking secondary school exams in a scandal that has rocked the country.

A court in Menya, 240 km south of Cairo, convicted the group for trying in June to cheat the dreaded “thanawiya amma” — Egypt’s equivalent of A-levels or SATs — that largely determines a child’s future.

The court found the accused guilty of “having organized leaks, which damaged the principle of equality of opportunity between pupils,” in the English and math sections of the exams, a judicial source said.

Ringleader Ezzat Khalil Mansour, head of Menya’s Examinations Committee, was jailed for 15 years and sacked. His friend Ayman Rabie was jailed for 10 years for having bought the exam papers for 300 Egyptian pounds ($55) and for subsequently selling them. Four other accused, including a policeman and a headmaster, were jailed for seven years and fined 5,000 pounds. The other accused, including parents who bought the leaked exam papers, were jailed for between three and five years”.

What is so unique about this news is that if this had happened in Pakistan, no action would have been taken against the culprits. If anyone (an invigilator, for instance) had dared to object to the mass cheating, he would have found that the cheaters were related to powerful people in Islamabad. But what else can we expect in a country where liars and crooks are elected to parliament and then they elect a president who is one of them?

Other posts by Shakir Lakhani

• Hand over India's security to ISI! - November 30th, 2008
• ISI is to blame for everything that goes wrong in India! - November 29th, 2008
• No limit on foreign exchange taken out of Pakistan - November 12th, 2008
• Some questions about the "forex" scandal - November 11th, 2008
• Enjoying life after sixty - November 7th, 2008
• A Hussein in the White House - November 5th, 2008
• Why are poor Pakistanis always punished? - October 31st, 2008
• Pakistan's Economic Crisis: we're responsible - October 29th, 2008
• How Wall Street operates - October 23rd, 2008
• We’ll always have corruption - October 19th, 2008