Ten inmates of the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons are taking part in the 2020 Private West African Senior Secondary Certificate Exams (WASSCE).

Three out of the 10 candidates are Business students while the other seven are General Arts students.

The examination centres for the 2020 private WASSCE include the Nsawam Senior High School and St. Martin’s Senior High School at Nsawam in the Eastern Region.

The candidates are escorted from the Prisons to their various exam centres by Prison officers and are made to observe the COVID-19 safety protocols, including wearing their face masks and carrying along their hand sanitisers.

One of the candidates who sat the Accounting paper bemoaned the lack of teaching and learning materials in the school.

He also emphasised the need for qualified and experienced teachers to tutor them and the motivation to encourage the inmates to stay in class to enable them get registered for the exams.

“We were more than this number when we started form 1 in the Prison, but only ten of us were able to register for the private exams”, the candidate stated.

This year’s candidates are optimistic that they will pass the exams, which will qualify them to take the Distance Education scholarship made available by the University of Cape Coast and Plan Volta, which are enrolling qualified and deserving inmates into tertiary institutions.

Nsawam Prisons recorded 100 per cent pass rate in the 2019 WASSCE for both school and private candidates.

This year’s private candidates exam began on Monday, 26 October and will end on Tuesday, 22 December 2020.