Fifteen (15) full-time Correctional Centre Schools to intensify education for inmates
As learners completed their first week of the 2014 school year, inmates across the country are registering for various educational and skills programmes. Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has called upon the Heads of South Africa's 243 correctional centres to encourage every inmate to participate in such programmes.
“The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) is implementing programmes aimed at turning around the lives of those who wronged society so that, upon release, they are ideal, productive, law-abiding citizens.
Inmates must work and study, and leave correctional centres with a skill in one hand and a certificate in the other hand. The hand that was used to harm others must be changed into a hand which now builds and heals. The trilogy of victim-offender-community is central to all rehabilitation,” said the Minister.
DCS has increased the number of full-time correctional centre schools from only one in 2009 to twelve in 2013. This year (2014), three additional schools are scheduled for accreditation including Rustenburg, Boksburg and Ekuseni Youth Centres.
Last year (2013), the Minister announced that, as from 1 April 2013, it is compulsory for every inmate, without a qualification equivalent to Grade 9, to complete Adult Education and Training (AET) level 1 to 4. Between April and September 2013, 11,649 inmates registered for AET programmes. From 2010 to 2013, 73,881 inmates participated in education programmes.
Over the past two years (2012/13), 559 inmates wrote Grade 9 to 11 examinations with an average pass rate of 73% in 2013. The number of inmates who wrote Grade 12 examinations doubled, and those who gained university admission also increased.
In the 2013 Grade 12 examinations, inmates achieved 60 subject distinctions. Offender Trynos Mohlanga achieved 100% in Business Studies, and Celumusa Mhlongo 90% in History. Umlatati Learning Centre, at Barberton Youth Centre in Mpumalanga, achieved a 100% pass rate, despite the fact that Grade 12 learners were only enrolled at this centre during the beginning of 2013.
Enquiries:
Logan Maistry
Cell: 083 644 4050
