Education officials in the Sekyere Afram Plains of the Ashanti Region have turned to drones to transport examination papers for students who will be taking this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has had trouble getting materials to students in the area because the Sene River has overflowed its banks.
As a result, the director of education for the Sekyere Afram Plains District, Prince Owusu Ansah, has announced that drones will be used during the entire exam period.
“Throughout the week, we will be writing the exams, and the drones will be dropping the questions for the candidates to write. And we are going to keep them at the Anyinam police station under tight security. At the end of the examination on Friday, we are praying that the road will be better, the water would have subsided, and we will carry all the scripts by road to the depot at Mampong,” Mr. Ansah said.
Also explaining further on the initiative, head of public affairs at WAEC John Pea said the drones were deployed in order to break the barrier on late submission of examination papers to the various centres.
In a media interaction, he said “he received information that the roads in the Afram Plains district were bad as a result of the rains. And the cannoes in that region were nothing to write home about, which is why they opted to use drone services, which have been effective.
He also noted that Anyinofi SDA JHS is the centre currently benefitting from the drone service.
He additionally said “they have intensified their monitoring systems across all the centers in the country, we have deployed the National Investigative Bureau and other special officers from WAEC to monitor the smooth process of the examination.
A total of 600,714 candidates are sitting for this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for school and private candidates today.
The figure comprises 300,323 males and 300,391 females from 18,993 participating schools.
The 5-day examination will be undertaken under the supervision of the West African Examination Council (WAEC).
The candidates participating in this year’s examinations are the final group of students to undertake the Basic Education Certificate Examination, a program that has been in operation for more than 30 years.
Source: The Independent Ghana