Baccalaureate scandal: Anti-riot police quell demonstration by cheating candidates in Algiers

Anti-riot police forces broke up Tuesday a street demonstration in Algiers by scores of disgruntled candidates who had been penalized for gross cheating in the 2013 Baccalaureate exam.

According to the national office of exams and contests (ONEC), the number of proven and confirmed cases of cheating during the 2013 session of the Baccalaureate exam reached 3.180 in six wilayas or provinces of the country.

The demonstrators who vented their anger at a such a decision penalizing them for defrauding in this major exam, marched from the ONEC offices in the upper Telemny district to downtown Algiers where they were forcefully dispersed by anti-riot police forces who had been deployed in strategic spots of the capital in order to face up to any untoward contingency.

Some of the protestors told Echorouk that the decision was heavy-handed as it was applied on many candidates who had not defrauded in the exam and called for a remedial examination session to be organized in the next few weeks in order to put things right once and for all, as they put it.

However, the Algeria High-Schools’Council (CLA) urged the National Education Ministry not to compromise on the rightful decision to sanction the cheaters, stressing that such a move was designed to safeguard the credibility and reliability of the outstanding Baccalaureate exam which paves the way, in case of success, for higher University studies.