All prison inmates presented for 2020 BECE score 100%

All 25 inmates of the Senior Correctional Centre (SCC) presented for the 2020 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), have successfully passed.

The Senior Correctional Centre (formally known as the Borstal Institute) is the only juvenile male facility in Ghana under the management of the Ghana Prisons Service.

Twenty-one of them have secured placement in various Senior High/Technical schools across the country, with the remaining four pending placement.

Out of the number, fourteen are still in custody while the remaining eleven have gone on discharge.

In a related development, all three inmates of the Nsawam Medium Security Prison who sat for the NOV/DEC 2020 BECE have also passed with aggregates ranging from 10 to 14.

One of them has since gone on discharge while the other two who are still in custody have been enrolled into the Senior High School programme of the Nsawam Prison Senior High School.

The Ghana Prisons Service, in its quest to deliver on its reformation mandate in line with international best practices on prisoner education, introduced formal education in 2007, starting with the Senior Correction Centre on a pilot basis.

The brilliant performance of the first batch of this pilot led to the extension of the programme to other prison facilities, culminating in government’s decision to construct a school block in the Nsawam Medium Security Prison through the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).

The facility currently serves as a school complex where Junior High School, Senior High School and tertiary education programme are run for inmates.

It would be recalled that the University of Cape Coast in January, 2020, matriculated 59 inmates of the Nsawam Medium Security Prison into various diploma programmes offered by its College of Distance Education. The initiative was the fruit of a collaboration between the Prisons Administration and the University with support from Plan Volta Foundation, a non-governmental organisation.

The Prisons Administration, since the inception of formal education programme for inmates in 2007, had been exploring the possibility of tertiary education for inmates since a good number of them complete the Senior High School programme with very good grades but remain in custody as they have not finished their prison sentences.

This, long cherished dream, however, became a reality in 2020 when Plan Volta Foundation and the University of Cape Coast came on board.

It is believed that, given the necessary support, the initiative would continue to churn out every year from the prisons, persons who can no longer be simply described as ex-convicts but rather graduates who can be productive, law abiding and can contribute their quota to national development.