‘Anti-cheating’ exam hats said to be ‘really effective’

A classroom full of students sitting an exam have not been allowed to cheat after their teacher made them don a series of special 'anti-cheating' hats.

We say hats, these aren't really the type of headgear coming soon to a store near you, but they've apparently proven to be 'really effective' at preventing pupils from peeking at other exam papers.

The idea was the brainchild of Mary Joy Mandane-Ortiz, professor of mechanical engineering at Bicol University College of Engineering, the Philippines.

It really is an engineer's solution to the problem of cheating as the students have all been forced to wear hats which make it all but impossible for their eyes to wander across the classroom and stare at someone else's answers.

While some of the hats are rudimentary, little more than a couple of bits of paper taped to an unfortunate pupil's head, they seem to do the trick.

At the very least they block out peripheral vision and probably make a hell of a noise if your head is swivelling back and forth as you try to spot what someone else has put down as an answer.

Mary Joy Mandane-Ortiz

The anti-cheating hats vary wildly in sophistication, with some students showing up in actual headgear like a motorcycle helmet and others having a trio of eggboxes tied around their face.

According to the BBC, Professor Mandane-Ortiz had been inspired by an idea from Thailand which went viral back in 2013 where students took their tests wearing 'ear flaps'.

Taking that idea and running with it, she gave her students the brief to make a 'simple' paper design to block their vision.

This being a class full of engineering students, she soon got some very innovative ideas including some who just brought in hats and helmets of their own.

Social media posts of her creative solution quickly went viral and other schools and universities in the Philippines have taken up the challenge of making their own anti-cheating hats.

The idea has worked brilliantly, as Professor Mandane-Ortiz explained that nobody from her class was caught cheating this year and results improved as her students studied even harder.

Mary Joy Mandane-Ortiz

Kids these days are always finding innovative new ways to cheat on their exams and it's a constant arms race to crack down on them and catch them out.

One law student was recently caught with a whole stash of pens where helpful hints were carved into the plastic, with the text so small that anyone looking from a distance wouldn't notice anything was wrong.

The student used a needle to write the clues onto their pens, a much more sophisticated option than some other tricks students have tried.

One man managed to go undetected for three days sitting his girlfriend's exams by wearing a wig and headscarf before exam monitors realised on the fourth day who they thought was a 19-year-old woman was actually a 22-year-old man.

Keeping up with the cheaters is a tough task, but teachers are getting creative themselves.

One clever teacher snuck an impossible question onto an exam paper and posted a fake answer online, meaning anyone who snuck a look at their phone on a toilet break would show themselves to be a cheater.