When the proverbial iron door is clung shut, many a soul gets to the realization that prison life will indeed be a life-changing phenomenon. However, as PRISCA BAIKE found, learning is happening behind bars. In this four-part series, she examines the intricate correction system under the Uganda Prisons Service.
As he released the latest A-level results, Uganda National Examinations Board executive secretary, Daniel Odongo, cited Emmanuel Okello, an inmate in his late 30s, who had scored 19 points, to excel in the exams from Luzira Upper prison.
Okello, who is serving a 20-year sentence for murder, had scored an A in Christian Religious Education, an A in Entrepreneurship Education and a B in History, along with a distinction 2 in Subsidiary ICT as well as a credit 3 in General Paper. So, how had a prison inmate managed to beat the odds and perform better than many other candidates outside the prison walls?
In his own words, Okello said, “I was keen to become a better person on the inside than I had been on the outside”.
And his is not a lone story. Many prison inmates have found that they can while the time away doing something gainful to them, like obtaining an education. But prison education isn’t what it is on the outside, nor was it what it was initially planned, at the advent of the Uganda Prisons Service at the beginning of the 20th century.
The prison education system evolved out of what is known as the welfare and rehabilitation division, under the directorate of Correctional Services in 1974. Headed by an assistant commissioner, this division is overseen by the department of Rehabilitation Services. It was developed to rehabilitate and resettle inmates through diverse interventions.
According to Anatoli Owakubaruho Biryomumaisho, the senior welfare and rehabilitation officer at Uganda Prisons, the initial idea was to impart vocational skills to the inmates.
Before 1974, this included tailoring, carpentry and modern farming, among others, which had been going on since prisons started. The main goal of imparting these vocational skills was, not for education purposes but, rather, production.
In 1974, a conscious decision was taken to primarily teach vocational courses that would then feed into production. Over time, the prisoners developed a need to enhance their knowledge levels after a visit by Comboni missionaries in 1994.
“The condemned prisoners were idle with nothing to engage them; so, the Comboni missionaries of Mbuya and the Franciscan prisons ministries of Nsambya took literature materials for the prisoners to read as a way of keeping them occupied,” says Biryomumaisho, explaining that the minority who could read are the ones who read for the majority who could not read.
Eventually, the ones who could not read got interested in learning how to read from the elite inmates, so that they could read for themselves and thankfully, the readers were willing to teach their colleagues.
“The readers became leaders and they ended up being teachers,” adds Biryomumaisho. By this time, teaching in prison started with simple letters of the alphabet.
“Education is not a core mandate of Uganda Prisons Service. It is part of the rehabilitation regime for inmates,” says Biryomumaisho.
As such, the vocational education segment is yet to be formalized under the Business, Technical and Vocational Education and Training Act.
FORMAL LEARNING STARTS
It is unclear when the prisons starts formal teaching of academics, but Biryomumaisho is certain it evolved from the Luzira-based Upper prison between 1994 and 1996.
With the growing desire to learn, the missionaries started providing paper offcuts and chalk to the inmates. Illustrations were made on a wall, which would be washed before the next lesson.
Later, simple arithmetic and numeracy were incorporated into the classes and by 1997 formal education in prison had taken shape. In 2000, the first group of inmates at Luzira Upper prison sat for Primary Leaving Examinations.
Of the 30 inmate candidates, 16 obtained first division; eight passed with second division; while four passed in third division and two failed. But according to Biryomumaisho, this only served to increase interest in the learning processes. Consequently, the education system has been rolled out to several other prisons among which is the Wakiso-based Kigo prison.
On a bright Monday mid-morning at the Kigo prison, we found the day’s classes in high gear with several cocoons of male inmates being taught under tents erected at the edges of the open space. This space also serves as a pitch and recreational centre for all the inmates. Female inmates are taught separately, from the women’s wing.
As the student-inmates attend classes, their non-student colleagues go about their day, almost oblivious of the on-going educational activities. Consequently, while the other inmates may be shouting, singing or relaxing without let, the learners are compelled to pay attention, in what looks like a less-than-conducive environment.
However, it appears to be a godsend to the inmates, who make the best of a free opportunity to study while in prison. But all is not doom and gloom as some classes are conducted in a concrete and iron-roofed structure.
Due to limited space and small class numbers, a single classroom houses at least two classes at a given time. On the day we visited, the P5 science class and the P6 mathematics class were being conducted side by side in the same room.
Moses Ssentalo, the officer in charge of Kigo Prison, explains that they improvise with the limited space they have.
“At the establishment of these prisons, the idea of having schools was not there. It merely emerged in a fixed space but we are capable of overcoming any challenge,” says Ssentalo, who is pleased with how the inmates manage to excel despite their challenges.
IMPROVING OUTCOMES
Out of the 144 candidates, who registered for Primary Leaving exams across the 15 prison schools last year, 12 candidates passed in division I; 64 in division II; 33 in division III and 17 in division IV, while seven failed and eight did not sit exams. The best candidate was from Gulu main prison with aggregate 9.
In 2002, Upper prison got its pioneer Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (A-level) and since then, the formal education system has grown from strength to strength as Biryomumaisho narrates.
Five years later, the A-level facility was considered as a Universal Secondary Education under a public-private partnership.
“By that time, the formal education system was fully adopted by the Uganda Prisons Service, although it had no [financial] input except for goodwill,” says Biryomumaisho.
In 2009, Biryomumaisho, a teacher by profession, was appointed to head the school system in prisons, with a mandate to establish schools with a defined direction within prisons.
In that same year, the institution acquired tertiary education with Makerere University Business School providing a certificate program in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management to benefit both O and A-level leavers.
In 2010, November, the education ministry recognized and grant-aided the school and named it Upper Prison Inmates Secondary School-Luzira. The ministry has deployed both teaching and non-teaching staff.
“What prison does is to provide a head teacher because of the nature of students we have,” notes Biryomumaisho.
In 2012, the ministry introduced UPOLET under a public-private partnership, although the A-level section still operates as a private grant-aided institution. The following year, Makerere University Business School (Mubs) upgraded its certificate programme, by providing a diploma in the same discipline.
Drake University of the United States in Iowa in collaboration with Muteesa I Royal University partnered with Uganda Prisons to provide annual trainings to inmates. According to Biryomumaisho, the trainings are not examinable but are ideal in creating a holistic person, and are in line with their rehabilitation goals.
That same year, the African Prisons Project NGO in partnership with the University of London offered a diploma in international law, which has now raised study levels in prison to degree level, targeting both inmates and prison staff.
“It was agreed by the London School of Law that some staff will undergo competitive applications to undertake the course,” says Biryomumaisho.
However, majority of the slots are reserved for inmates. Currently, there are 11 inmates and three staff undertaking the course within prison. Today, there are 15 prison formal education units across the country, although plans are underway to establish more.
The schools are Uganda Prison Upper, Murchison Bay prison, Luzira Women prison, Kitalya prison, Kigo main, Kigo Women prison, Jinja Main prison, Jinja Women prison, Mbarara group of prisons (M/W), Masindi Main prison, Arua prison, Gulu Main prison, Fort Portal Main prison, Namalu prison (in Karamoja) and Nakasongola prison.
Out of the 45,000 prisoners in the country, 2,408 are enrolled in primary, 576 are in secondary school, 161 on the university programme while 3,131 inmates are undertaking vocational and technical skills training on a separate training component from the production component.
Asked about it, the commissioner general of prisons, Dr Johnson Byabashaija, is optimistic about the future of learning behind bars.
“It is now part of government policy that prisons have schools,” he says. “In the past we relied on teachers, who are prisoners, but now we are sent teachers from the Education Service Commission and the programme is progressing very well.”
The statement can only serve to encourage Emmanuel Okello and others who are studying while serving their sentences.
“I intend to continue studying and hopefully get a degree in Law until I complete my sentence … hopefully I will be a better person when I come out,” he says, before he is ushered back behind the heavy gates at Murchison Bay prison in Luzira.
pbaike@yahoo.com