Acting National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Ms Nontsikelelo Jolingana says the department has established 14 full time schools within five years, doubled numbers of completely illiterate offenders on the pre-ABET programme and trained about 10 000 offenders as artisans.
Ms Jolingana was addressing a graduation ceremony of 83 young offenders this morning who received bronze medals after successfully completing a gruelling youth leadership and empowerment programme that is driven by the President's Award at Leeuwkop Correctional Centre.
Act National Commissioner Jolingana said "The Regional Bronze Award ceremony comes at a time when our country is celebrating the 20 years of Freedom and Democracy that saw a drastic change from Prisons to Correctional Services. Throughout the years, we have worked so hard to transform our prisons from being places of malice, doom and varsities of crime to centres of learning and rehabilitation. We have progressively been able to build centres of new beginnings, where criminals that harmed and terrorised our societies can appreciate the harm caused, change their way-ward ways and adopt an outlook on life that makes them worthy and responsible citizens of our country."
She said since 1994, over 30 000 inmates participated in the President's Award Programme and that South Africa has become a model for other African countries like Kenya,Cameroon and Uganda that introduced the Award Programme into their Correctional Centres. She listed a series of achievements of the Department over the past five years including:
- Doubling offenders that are on our pre-ABET programme aimed at addressing complete illiteracy of about 6000 offenders;
- Establishing 14 fulltime schools across the country through growing partnerships with among others the Department of Basic Education, with performance outcomes continuing to improve;
- Training about 10 000 offenders, most of whom were young people, as artisans. This was part of a broader human development strategy of our country to supply highly sought after artisans in our developing economy and industries.
Ms Jolingana thanked the President's Award and other stakeholders for their assistance in increasing the pool of incentives for more young people, who find themselves in correctional centres across the country, to grab life-changing opportunities as part of their rehabilitation process.
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