By Juliet Mettle-Edmonds
Thirty-four (34) Prisoners from the Prisons Service sat for the 2024 Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E.). The thirty-four candidates who are all males comprised 27 juveniles from the Senior Correctional Centre (SCC), 5 from Nsawam Maximum Security Prison and 2 from the Sunyani Central Prison.
The Inmate candidates revealed that, this year’s B.E.C.E. will perform very well due to how fully they have been prepared by their teachers. They commended the teachers for the hard work and promised to make them proud.
Meanwhile, the Greater Accra Regional Public Relations Officer, DSP Loretta Valentina Amoah says, 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 will pass in all the subjects and come out with flying colours.
According to DSP Loretta Valentina Amoah inadequate teaching and learning materials for the inmates to upgrade themselves is a challenge. She urged the public to come to the aid of the inmates, especially the juveniles with textbooks and past questions to enhance their studies and make learning fun.
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 certificates to facilitate their smooth reintegration.
The first badge which was made up of 21 juveniles and young offenders sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (B.E.C.E.) in 2009 and recorded 100%. The Service has been recording 100% passes since 2009. Last year, 51 prisoners across the country sat for B.E.C.E and also recorded 100% pass.
