An educational programme for prison inmates

Abstract

This dissertation highlights the importance of a lifelong and lifewide education, an education which goes on through an individual's entire life span and which is not restricted to any particular time and place. This need for education is mostly the result of a continuous influx of change taking place in our post-modem world. Thus, prisoners should also be provided with a possibility to improve their education during their incarceration so that they would keep in touch with the outside world besides having better employment possibilities once they are outside. Moreover, this education would prove to be beneficial to society in the long run for prisoners would become better equipped to face the problems once they are released, and are thus less likely to revert to crime. In other words, education will be utilised as a tool to reduce recidivism. Furthermore, through the works of Foucault and Freire, this dissertation explores how the contending forces of power and education can be bridged. After, the practical side of the situation is assessed by identifying what type of correctional programmes other countries are embarking upon. Finally, the local correctional programme which is still very recent will be analysed and several suggestions and possibilities will be brought forward, the aim of which is to improve what is already being done.