AMMAN — On Monday morning, internet
users using Zain found that they were not able to access the internet,
frustrating the many Tawjihi (general secondary education certificate
examination) students sitting for their mock tests online today.
اضافة اعلان
In a tweet on Monday, the Jordan
Open Source Association wrote that there was an “almost complete” shutdown of
Zain’s internet services. They wrote that the slowdown in services began at
10:20am, and gradually returned at 11:40am.
The Tawjihi “mock examinations”,
high school students’ final tests before their official exams, began on Sunday.
The tests are being conducted online due to COVID-19. On Facebook, one user
wrote that her internet failed just before her son’s exams. “I called many
friends. It is the same everywhere,” she wrote.
Likewise, another user on Twitter
wrote that the “fiber optic connection was lost today in all of Amman during
the school’s end of year exams. Customer support lines (are) all busy. As a
result all the students and their parents had to cope with extreme stress and
panic because of this unforgivable mess by the operator Zain.”
Another Twitter user criticized
Zain’s service, writing: “And yet the internet is very slow after an hour of
disconnection!”
In response, Zain’s official twitter
apologized for “any inconvenience.”
However, according to Najwa Qbeilat,
secretary general of the Ministry of Education, the ministry did not receive
any complaints about the internet outage. Qbeilat explained to Jordan News that if students have
connectivity problems during the mock exams, they can come into schools to use
their internet. She added that the final Tawjihi exam will take place
in-person, not online.
Ministry of Education Secretary
General for Educational Affairs Nawaf Al-Ajarmeh however, has said in previous
remarks that a passing grade in these mocks is a key requirement for admission
to the final exams.
Zain is one of the country’s leading
telecommunications providers. At the end of June 2019, the company reported
that it served 3.7 million customers in Jordan, with revenue of $240 million.
The failure follows a complete power
blackout for approximately six hours on Friday.
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