Unable to find a solution to the question leak menace, the education minister has come up with a desperate idea ahead of the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations. One of his own Cabinet colleagues compared it to “beheading a person because of a headache”. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid said yesterday that his ministry would take steps to block Facebook for a limited period when the SSC examinations are on. This will be to prevent question paper leaks. “We will request the Facebook authorities to block it for some time. We will fix the period after holding discussions with the authorities concerned. This does not mean that Facebook will remain blocked for a long time. It will be for a short period,” he explained.

The minister was speaking to journalists at an emergency meeting on the preparations for SSC exams at the conference room of the education ministry in the Secretariat. “Everything (questions), whether authentic or not, is uploaded on Facebook. We  will talk to the ministry concerned about whether Facebook can be blocked during the exams. We will take the decision at the meeting,” added. However, telecom and ICT minister Mustafa Jabbar told The Independent that the education minister has made the comment without discussing the matter with him. “Personally, I am against beheading a person because he/she has a headache. We don’t have any intention to block Facebook. Even before I became a minister, I used to think—in fact, I still do—that shutting things down cannot be a solution to any problem,” he added.

The chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission, Dr Shahjahan Mahmud, has no idea about the plan to block Facebook either. “I don’t know anything about this,” he said.

Technology expert Sumon Ahmed Sabir explained that blocking Facebook was a bad idea anyway. “It’s difficult to block Facebook for a temporary period. It has been done in the past. Users find alternative ways to use it,” he said.

In 2015, the government had blocked Facebook for 22 days. But the younger generation used proxy servers to log on to Facebook, technology experts said.

About the other measures to be taken during the SSC exams, the education minister said the examinees have to enter the hall half an hour before the start of the exams. “No examinee will be allowed to enter the hall after that. If the exams start at 10 am, the students will have to enter by 9.30 am. No excuses will be accepted,” he added.

“Teachers on exam duty will be allowed to open the sealed envelopes containing the question papers only 30 minutes before the exams. If any teacher opens the envelope before the scheduled time, the action will be considered an offence. And the teacher will be considered to be involved in question paper leak. Legal action will be taken against him/her. The teacher may even lose the job,” he said.

There will be various teams across the country to monitor whether the teachers are following the instructions, the minister said. Nahid himself will be part of this monitoring team.

About the coaching centres, the minister said: “The main attraction of coaching centres is that they have a tendency to leak questions. We will take steps to keep the coaching centres closed starting three days before the exams begin and until they end.”

The ministry has also put an embargo on mobile phones in the exam centres. “No teacher or student will be allowed to carry mobile phones to the exam centres. There will be only one mobile—not a smartphone—for emergency calls only. Even if I enter an exam hall, I will not carry a mobile phone,” he claimed.

The minister added that students and others will not be allowed to carry any kind of device, and they will be checked thoroughly. He also urged guardians to not “run after” leaked questions. “Leaked questions may help your children score good results but cannot make them good persons,” he added.