The “Maturità al sicuro” campaign by the State Police and Skuola.net is back to combat fake news about the state exam and correctly inform students.
Almost 1 in 4 graduates think they can keep their smartphone with them during the tests, about 1 in 5 that they can use a smartwatch. And some still fall into the trap of the tracks found online and risk spending the whole day trying to find them…
The years go by but, for students who are about to take the Maturity exam, the risk of falling into one of the traditional fake news on exam rules remains very high. Enough to raise the level of attention on possible "hoaxes" related to the basic rules that govern the State Exam.
Which is what the Postal and Cyber Security Police regularly do with “Maturità al sicuro”, the awareness campaign carried out together with the specialized portal Skuola.net, which for the seventeenth consecutive year has set itself the goal of “dismantling” the main fake news on the subject.
New technologies in particular, with the constant development of digital “aids”, can induce temptation. Becoming a possible amplifier of behavioral errors. Which, in the worst cases, can even lead to exclusion from the exam.
The risk is real. The answers given by the approximately 1.000 people clearly show this. maturanti reached by the monitoring carried out by Skuola.net for the State Police about a week before the start of the 2024 Maturity.
For example, almost 1 in 4 students are convinced that smartphones can be kept with them at their workstation during written tests. When, instead, they must be handed over to the commission's desk, as 77% of the sample interviewed correctly demonstrates.
And if 17% are aware that phones must remain strictly turned off, 6% think that they can even be used, risking at most being called back or penalized during the correction phase and not, as could happen, seeing the entire exam invalidated. Furthermore, the share of those who could fall into incorrect use of the smartphone during the exam increases by 20% compared to the previous year. Not exactly a good omen.
Something similar happens with another “special subject”: the smartwatch. In this case, almost 1 in 6 (17%) thinks that the tech watch can be worn and used safely on the wrist during written tests, as long as it is not connected to the Internet.
Meanwhile, 4% believe it can be used without any restrictions to access the Internet. If the first is already a false belief, imagine the second, which is actually a completely prohibited practice. Given that the use of smartwatches—of any type—is as restricted as that of cell phones, yet overall, 1 in 5 believes the opposite.
The function of “Maturità al sicuro”, however, is not only to inform about possible hypotheses of infringements connected to the Maturità but also to remind some fundamental aspects of the exam regulations whose non-compliance could lead to exclusion: from the need to show up with an identity document to that of not introducing other sheets of paper other than those provided by the commission. Without forgetting the real fake news.
About a quarter of high school graduates (26%) are in fact convinced that the Police can check smartphones "remotely" to understand who is cheating; which is not true. And almost half (46%) believe that, during exams, the members of the commission can search the candidates, looking for prohibited objects.
Even in this case, this is incorrect information that must be debunked, while still calling for caution, given that the exam commissioners, if they were to notice illegal maneuvers, still have the right to exclude candidates caught "red-handed" in the act of cheating.
And then there is the great, age-old issue of exam topics. Especially those of the Italian written exam. Because there are still too many students who think they can find ideas in advance to develop on the day of the exam, especially online. Those who are well aware that online you can only find indiscretions, predictions or, at most, examples, are "only" 76% of high school graduates.
24%, on the other hand, believe that at least the topics are spread earlier; 4% think that with the right moves, it is possible to get your hands on the actual tracks with a few hours of advantage.
And over 1 in 3 imagines that the Ministry could change the tracks even at the last minute. So it is not surprising that about 1 in 7 is tempted, in the immediate eve of the final exams, to patrol social platforms and specialized sites until late at night hoping for the winning tip.
This is why campaigns like the “anti-hoax” campaign by Polizia di Stato and Skuola.net are extremely useful for spreading correct messages and clearing the field of misleading beliefs.
The final exam is a very important appointment for students and for this reason it is necessary to maintain the serenity necessary to face them. False news, on the other hand, can lead to sterile distractions, causing a decrease in concentration that is instead necessary to face one of the most important moments of the scholastic path.
All these messages are also included in a short video built in line with current social trends, using a language as close as possible to that of the protagonists of the exam. The content, which features the official YouTuber Nikolais, will be on the Skuola.net platform and on the social channels Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X of the State Police and the media for students.
This year, the online police station staff will be available to answer all of the students' questions and concerns about information circulating online. Furthermore, a representative of the State Police will participate in the traditional Skuola.net live broadcast on the eve of the first day of exams, to wish all the students taking the 2024 State Exams good luck.
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