‘Anti-cheating’ exam hats in the Philippines go viral

Images of students wearing ‘anti-cheating’ hats in the Philippines have gone viral, sparking amusement and arguments over their effectiveness.​

At the Bicol University College of Engineering in Legazpi City, students were asked to wear headgear to
prevent them from looking at their classmates’ papers.

The authorities at the college didn’t specify the type of headgear and requested only that the students make a “simple” design out of paper.​

However, many students responded by creating homemade hats out of cardboard, egg boxes, and other
recycled things. One student made goggles out of paper tubes, while others wore hats, helmets, or Halloween masks.

Mary Joy Mandane-Ortiz, a professor of engineering at the college, said that she had been looking for a “fun way” to ensure “integrity and honesty” in her classes, and she saw the college’s mid-term exams as an opportunity to put the anti-cheating headgear into effect.​

This idea was inspired by a technique reportedly used in Thailand in 2013. An image at the time appeared to show a room of university students in Bangkok taking an exam while wearing ‘ear flaps’ – sheets of paper stuck to either side of their head, with the intention of obscuring their vision.

Professor Mandane-Ortiz argued that the idea had been “really effective” in practice.

She said that her tutees had performed better this year as a result of the strict examination conditions and that many of them had finished their tests early and without cheating.

After the professor shared images of the students in the headgear on Facebook, she garnered thousands of likes in a few days and attracted local overage from Filipino media outlets.

There are reports that schools and universities in other parts of the country began encouraging students to make their own anti-cheating headgear as a result.

Not every comment was positive, however, with one on the Facebook posts asking: “Why are the
college authorities using such drastic measures?”​