MANILA - “Anti-cheating” masks, hats and helmets worn by Filipino students have gone viral on social media.

These students from Bicol University College of Engineering in the Philippines were donning their creative headgear while sitting their mid-term exams early this week.

They didn’t do it out of mischief, but at the instruction of their professor.

In a Facebook post, Professor Mary Joy Mandane-Ortiz said she asked her students to prepare headgear for their mid-term exams.

She gave them permission to go wild, and her students duly complied. Some of their designs featured upcycled materials like egg cartons and paper bags. Others use clothes hangers, motorbike helmets and towels. And many added their own drawings on their headgears.

“I really love and [I’m] proud of my students because their engineering mid-term exams can be pressuring and stressful, yet they managed to add some colour and fun,” wrote Prof Mandane-Ortiz. “Thank you very much, students. You make me proud.”

The professor took inspiration from a Thai university that required students to wear paper-made horse blinker-like gear to keep eyes from wandering in 2013. In that episode, Kasetsart University drew criticisms from Thai netizens, and the anti-cheating measure was quickly scrapped. THE NATION/ASIA NEWS NETWORK