CAIRO - 24 June 2026: Egypt’s Ministry of Education has implemented a massive, high-tech crackdown on academic dishonesty during the current Thanaweya Amma (high school final) and university exam season.
The government strictly enforces anti-cheating legislation (Law 205/2020), which targets both students and external leakers.
More than 921,000 Egyptian students began the country's high school leaving examinations on Sunday, marking the start of a testing period that will play a decisive role in determining their university admissions and future academic paths.
Known locally as the Thanaweya Amma, the examinations are one of the most significant milestones in Egypt's education system.
Law No. 205 of 2020, the Anti-Examination Offenses Law, stipulates severe penalties for cheating or attempting to cheat in the General Secondary Education Certificate examinations.
The law imposes penalties on anyone who prints, publishes, broadcasts, or promotes, by any means, exam questions and answers or any assessment systems in various stages of Egyptian and foreign education with the intent to cheat or disrupt the examination process, or to attempt to do so.
Article 1 of the law stipulates: “Without prejudice to any more severe penalty stipulated in another law, anyone who prints, publishes, broadcasts, or promotes, by any means, examination questions or answers or any assessment systems in the various stages of Egyptian and foreign education, with the intent to cheat or disrupt the public order of examinations, shall be punished by imprisonment for a period of not less than two years and not more than seven years, and by a fine of not less than 100,000 Egyptian pounds and not more than 200,000 Egyptian pounds.
Attempting to commit any of the acts stipulated in the first paragraph shall be punishable by imprisonment for a period of not less than one year and by a fine of not less than 10,000 Egyptian pounds and not more than 50,000 Egyptian pounds, or by one of these two penalties.
A student who commits or attempts to commit cheating, or any of the acts stipulated in the two preceding paragraphs, shall be barred from taking the examination in the current session and the following session of the same academic year, and shall be considered to have failed all subjects. In the case of foreign examinations, the student shall be barred from taking the examinations for the subjects required for equivalency according to the Egyptian system for two sessions.”
In all cases, the items seized in connection with the crime shall be confiscated.
Article Two of the law stipulates that anyone found in possession, without justification, of any mobile phone or other wired or wireless communication, transmission, or reception devices, or any modern technological device of any kind that could facilitate the commission of any of the acts stipulated in Article One of this law, shall be punished with a fine of no less than 5,000 Egyptian pounds and no more than 10,000 Egyptian pounds.
The court shall also order the confiscation of the seized devices.
Article Three of the law stipulates that Law No. 101 of 2015 concerning combating acts of disrupting examinations shall be repealed.
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