The University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast and the University of Education, Winneba are set to extend learning opportunities to Ghana’s prisons.
According to Superintendent Vitalis Ayeh, the public relations officer of the Ghana Prisons Service, they are in talks with the public universities in order to make distance learning available to inmates.
“We are in talks with the Universities of Ghana, Cape Coast, and [Education], Winneba to extend their services to the Prison Service of Ghana so that these inmates who have qualified to enter university but because they are serving in the prison and cannot go to the university [can profit].
They can benefit from the distance education system and they can come out better off. We have done that. It hasn’t started yet, but I believe that where it has gotten to, very soon we will have distance learning in our prisons,” he told Accra-based Class FM.
Analysis
Ghana’s prisons are congested with many remand prisoners, who are yet to receive their sentences or acquittal. The extension of learning opportunities would be now make it possible for those who could potentially be released to continue their lives in some way from where they left off.
One of the suggestions advocates of prison reform have consistently called for is the proper structuring of the apprenticeship and productivity during incarceration.
They argue that life out of prison without working skills or employment increases the chances of reoffending.
