Ethiopia cancels national university entry exams after Oromo activists leak paper

Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian high school students woke up to a rude shock on Monday, when the government unexpectedly cancelled the national University entrance examination following a nationwide leakage.

Reports say, pictures of the English exam,which was due to start on Monday, had been uploaded on various social media sites and were going viral.

The country’s Minister of Education, Shiferaw Shigute, confirmed the leakage saying that it prompted the cancellation.

The leakage however turned out to have been deliberately organised, after activists rooting for greater rights for Ethiopia’s Oromo people said they were responsible for the leak.

Jawar Mohammed, is the director of activist group Oromo Media Network (OMN). He argues that the exams were sabotaged so that Oromo students can have enough time to study since, their schools had been closed for more than six months due to a series of protests that engulfed their region last year.

Protests erupted in Ethiopia’s Oromia region following a land requisition scheme as the government sought to develop farmland around the capital, Addis Ababa late last year, a move that triggered months of civil unrest.