Northern Region: Students risk missing out on BECE as floods overwhelm rural areas
Torrential rainfall in the Northern Region has submerged several homes and destroyed many properties
Junior high school (JHS) students in some areas of the Northern Region fear missing out on this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) because of recent floods in the region.
Several homes and properties have been submerged after days of torrential rainfall in the region.
The situation has been made worse by the spillage of the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso. Students on the Kpalba circuit in Saboba District fear that they may not be able to write the BECE, as the routes to exam centres are cut off by floods.
The examinations will begin on Monday 14 September 2020 but the students risk missing out if the situation does not improve.
“We’re afraid”
Some of the students described the situation as frightening and called on officials to allow them to write the BECE in their schools.
So far, six lives have been claimed in the floods, and hundreds of people have been rendered homeless. The final-year students appealed to the district assembly to find a solution to the situation.
“We are afraid of the water bodies here. How are we going to write our first paper on Monday? We are pleading with the district assembly to either find a means to get us to Saboba or allow us to write in our school,” a student told Citi FM.
“We cannot cross the water and go and write the exams. If WAEC does not allow us to write in our school, we will miss out on the BECE,” another student said.
DCE to the rescue
Meanwhile, the DCE for Saboba in the Northern Region, George Bigrini, said there are plans to transport the students to the various exams centres.
He said several means of transportatioare being arranged, including buses and canoes, to take students to the centres.
“We have made plans to procure vehicles; we are just waiting. We are organising canoes to the Wapulu side,” Bigrini told Citi FM.
“We have a school across the river with a bigger bus at the Wapulu school. We have made arrangements for the bus. So the plan is that, when we transport them to the other side of the river, the bus will take them to Saboba,” he added.
E A Alanore
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