With less than a week to go to the final matric exams, schools in some of Nelson Mandela Bay’s most impoverished areas are in dire straits — and the rush is on to find more desks, fix electricity problems and squeeze in extra study time.

The scramble for basic resources comes as scores of pupils prepare to write the most important exams of their lives in the dark, under dangling electrical wires and in classrooms with broken ceilings...