Thirty-four prisoners are participating in this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The BECE, organized annually in Ghana’s education system, marks the transition from Junior High Schools to Senior High Schools and Technical Institutions in Ghana.
The candidates, all males, include 27 juveniles from the Senior Correctional Centre (SCC), 5 from Nsawam Maximum Security Prison, and 2 from Sunyani Central Prison.
In an interview, the Greater Accra Regional Public Relations Officer, DSP Loretta Valentina Amoah, mentioned that the inmates have been fully prepared by qualified, trained teachers of the service and some from the Ghana Education Service.
She was optimistic that the inmates would pass all the subjects and come out with flying colours.
DSP Valentina Amoah also highlighted that challenges, such as inadequate teaching and learning materials impede the preparation process for the inmates to upgrade themselves.
She urged the public to come to the aid of the inmates, especially the juveniles, and donate materials such as textbooks and past questions to enhance their studies and make learning fun.
An interview with some of the inmate candidates revealed that this year’s BECE is going to be one of the best due to how fully they have been prepared by their teachers.
They commended the teachers for their hard work and promised to make them proud.
The Ghana Prisons Service, in its quest to deliver on its reformation and rehabilitation mandate in line with modern universal best practices, introduced formal education to the inmates on a pilot basis at the Senior Correctional Centre in 2007 and later extended it to the other prisons.
This was to help the inmates acquire some basic literacy skills as well as a certificate to facilitate their smooth reintegration.
The first batch made up of 21 juveniles and young offenders, sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination in 2009 and recorded 100%, and has since been recording 100% passes in 2009.
Last year, 51 prisoners across the country sat for BECE and also recorded a 100% pass.
