Some many years later and CXC, still ambitious in this plan, is facing hurdles as far as resource capacity is concerned.

Incoming President of the Secondary Schools Principals' Association, Neal Fontenelle, detailed some of the shortcomings present at schools in Saint Lucia that do not cater for paperless-only exams.

“Several of the schools do not have a reliable WiFi system, a reliable internet system, that we can have all our computers locked in at the same time, and for all the students to be writing the exams,” he explained.

Apart from an internet connection, he adds that schools also require physical resources to allow students to sit these exams. In many ways, Mr Fontenelle cites many logistical concerns.

“This year, I had maybe 105 students writing Maths and English. And you need that many computers to facilitate the exam. But again, do we have the bandwidth to ensure that this is done efficiently?”

The educator says he uses exams which are currently administered digitally as an example of the issues this transition may cause.

“For example, this year, we had a Technical Drawing exam. There was a big internet issue with that exam and we had students leaving at 8pm on that day. And TD was just about maybe 30 students, so imagine an exam with 100 students, the issues that can create,” he observed.

CXC has been on record as saying that printing and distributing the physical exam scripts are extremely costly to the organisers, prompting their desire to go paperless.

Fontenelle proposes a solution to CXC’s concerns which would include the schools printing the exam scripts themselves.

“I can suggest maybe what CXC can do instead of delivering the papers in the morning, they can probably find a way to make it available to the schools and then we can print it at a certain time. So that's another option that they can use with regards to that.”

The organisation, however, has faced many exam breaches in the past.