Every year, when exam season rolls around for students across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), many governments use the risk of cheating as an excuse to shut down the internet or block social media platforms. And every year, this results in millions of people losing connectivity, businesses grinding to a halt, and disruption to daily life across entire countries. Of course, exam shutdowns are not the only threat to education in the region;
students in Gaza
have begun a third academic year in tents and makeshift spaces, while in Lebanon, nearly
100,000
students were unable to return to school at all.
But across the wider MENA region, this year’s exam season saw mixed results for exam shutdowns. For the first time since Access Now,
SMEX,
and the
Internet Society
began tracking this phenomenon as part of the
#NoExamShutdown campaign
, the trend went in two different directions across the map. For example, Algeria, which has been a persistent offender for the past decade,
limited shutdown measures
to the inside of exam centres, without disconnecting the rest of the country. Meanwhile Syria, which imposed
11 nationwide exam-related shutdowns just last year
, appears to have held its 2026 exams without any documented disruptions. On the other hand, Tunisia — a country previously ranked as having the
highest internet freedom environment
in MENA — joined the offender list for the first time, imposing covert connectivity restrictions during both of its Baccalaureate exam sessions. Read on for more details of this year’s exam season results.
iraQ
sudan
syria
algeria
tunisia
jordan
india
✎ In Iraq, the numbers tell a complicated story
Iraq’s
exam-related internet shutdowns
are now in their 11th consecutive year, with 2026 adding at least 34 documented disruptions, according to
Cloudflare Radar
and
ISOC Pulse
data.
The first set of disruptions occurred throughout June, aligned with the country’s middle and high school exam
… [more]
