Pupils to sit exams in Faraday cage

FIGURES RELEASED by the UK's Qualifications and Curriculum Agency (QCA) show that one quarter of all exam cheats were using mobile phones.

The agency has called for drastic measures to prevent such cheating including sitting the exams in metal lined rooms designed to create a Faraday cage. The aim is to block mobile phone signals.

The QCA wanted to recommend the use of mobile phone signal blockers but the practice is banned by Ofcom, the UK's telecoms watchdog.

Other suggested measures include searching pupils with metal detectors. "New types of mobile phone blocking paint could be available in the future," said Professor Jean Underwood of Nottingham Trent University, which carried out the study for the QCA.

Phones were being used to text friends to ask for exam answers or to access the Internet to cheat in exams.

Out of 4,500 candidates penalised for cheating in 2005, around 1,100 had smuggled in mobile phones. µ