A 19-year-old female candidate in the just ended Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), from Kwahu Nketepa in the Eastern Region, who was nine months pregnant, successfully gave birth to a baby girl, a few hours before her first paper on Monday.
Augustina Okronipa, the new mother, delivered home during early dawn of the said day, but defying the odds to write the first paper, left the baby home and made the over one-hour journey from her home town, Kwahu-Nketepa to the examination centre at St. Paul’s SHS at Kwahu Asakraka, in the Kwahu South District, she told the Ghana News Agency.
[contextly_sidebar id=”AvN9rQhuTJCMHNnbyry6uJ3K2GZVGjxN”]She returned home after writing the first paper to breastfeed the fresh baby and traveled back to write the other papers.
Augustina said when she started experiencing birth pangs, she knew that could be the onset of labour but she thought she would deliver later in the day after writing the day’s papers.
“I expected to deliver after the examinations, but once it happened otherwise, I was still bent on writing the papers’, she said.
Augustina, a pupil of the Kwahu-Nketepa D/A Basic School, from a poor home, displaying rare determination to continue her education, told the GNA that her firm resolve to continue her education pushed her to continue writing the examination despite the odds.
Through the benevolence of an education officer in the Kwahu South district, Augustina was taken to hospital on Tuesday.
She was also provided accommodation at Kwahu Asakraka near the exams centre, to reduce the stress of having to commute to the centre, until the exams was over on Friday.
–
Source: GNA