THE first pilot tertiary school installed inside a prison was launched on in Davao City on Friday, July 28, to provide opportunities for detainees to earn a degree and acquire additional skills while serving their sentence.
According to Jail Superintendent Roberto Gotico, chief Community Relations Services of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP)-Davao Region, the Davao City Jail's College Education Behind Bars is a two-storey building equipped with modern facilities.
Out of the 300 inmates who took the entrance exam, 70 of them passed. The exam was conducted by the University of Southeastern Philippines (Usep).
BJMP chief Jail Director Serafin Barretto Jr., and the proponents of the project - the Social Entrepreneurship Institute president Dr. Alland Mizell and vice president lawyer Susan Carriaga were present in the event.
It was earlier reported that instead of conducting the classes inside the Usep campus, the teachers will go to the city jail to teach the inmates.
The curriculum to be used will be patterned from Usep. They will offer several programs like the basic education, vocational training, life skills development, and substance abuse intervention with weekly sessions of Celebrate Recovery steps.
Degree courses are also up for grabs like Agriculture, Business, Computer Technology, Hotel Restaurant Management and among others.
Once the inmates will graduate, they will receive a diploma from Usep which they can use when they complete their sentence in seeking for a job.
The schedule of classes will be on a daily basis. Morning schedule will be for the female inmates and the afternoon and evening sessions will be for males.
With this expanded college inside the city jail with comprehensive programs, it will help detainees to learn additional knowledge and become productive citizens.
Meanwhile, the Department of Information and Communication Technology will also launch their Tech4Ed program at the Davao City Jail on Sunday, July 30.