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Interior Minister, Dr. Kwame
Addo Kufuor |
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The Nsawam Medium Security Prisons has started an
educational programme to provide opportunities for inmates
and school dropouts to acquire formal education. Sixty
inmates have so far been enrolled.
The programme which forms part of the President's Special
Initiative on Distance Learning started in January with
primary, junior high, senior high and non formal education
as well as information communication and technology (ICT).
The programme follows the normal curriculum of the Ghana
Education Service with the imitates in the JHS taking
three years to complete and those at the senior high
level, spending four years after which they would write
the final examination conducted by the West African
Examination Council (WAEC) as regular pupils and students
do.
The Ghana Prisons Service Director General, William Asiedu,
said that the idea was to rehabilitate the inmates by
imparting knowledge and skills to them so that after
serving their sentences, they would have been better
equipped for a more meaningful life.
Other categories of prisoners, he said, were being trained
in vocations like batik tie and dye making, sewing,
carpentry, joinery, masonry, weaving, blacksmithry,
electronics and baking.
Mr Asiedu was briefing the Minister of the Interior, Dr.
Kwame Addo Kufuor, who paid a familiarization visit to the
prisons on Wednesday.
The minister and his entourage went round to see the
inmates busy in class with some taking mock examination in
ICT.
Mr Asiedu said the introduction of tile programme in the
prisons was a long term dream and expressed happiness that
it was bearing fruits with the prospects of being
replicated in other prisons.
He told the minister that the 2007 annual report of the
service indicated that the average age of prisoners was
29.2 years which he said portrayed a worrying picture that
called for intensified effort to give education and
training to inmates.
That was why he lauded government's support for the
service's reformation and rehabilitation programme to
increase inmates' chances of smooth reintegration into
society after their prison terms.
He appealed to civil society organizations and other
philanthropists to complement the government's effort by
supporting prisons with teaching and learning tools to
enhance teaching and learning.
He also commended the government for providing vehicles
and equipment and constructing a 5,000 capacity
ultra-modern maximum security prison at Ankaful in the
Central Region.
The Officer-in-Charge of the Nsawam Prison, Deputy
Director, Alex Ansong-Agyepong, expressed concern about
overcrowding, saying the prison built in 1956 to
accommodate 717 inmates, now had over 4,000 inmates.
“As at today, the inmate population stands at 2,926,
convicted prisoners and 1,903 remand prisoners including
those evacuated from the defunct James Town Fort Prison,”
he said.
“The swelling number of remand prisoners whose cases are
either under investigation or awaiting trial is of great
concern to us,” he said and added that “the Prisons
Administration continues to be in contact with other
partners in the Criminal justice system, especially the
police and the judiciary with regard to the disposal of
these remand cases but our efforts are yet to yield the
desired results.”
Dr Addo Kufuor said realizing the good work that the
service does, government was lending it full support to
enable it perform to expectation.
He mentioned the provision of vehicles, chain links to
fence the prison, communication gadgets, a classroom block
for the Nsawam Prisons community, workshop equipment,
water tankers and the construction of road networks, as
some of the facilities now extended to the prisons.
Source: The Ghanaian Times/Francis A. Tuffour
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