Davao City Jail To Launched First College Behind Bars For Prisoners In The PH By June This Year
Beyond just alternative learning systems, the Davao City
Jail will be providing college education behind bars in a program to be
launched within the next two months.
The program is initiated by a Dabawenya Lawyer and the President
of a Texas-based non-government organization (NGO) that has been providing
scholarship to indigenous peoples in Davao.
The College Behind Bars, the artists perspective of which
was shared over social media, was conceived by Dr. Alland Mizell, President of
Social Entrepreneurship Technology Business Institute Foundation Inc., in 2016
with his Vice President Lawyer Susan Cariaga.
Mizell is also President of Minority Care International, an
NGO based in Texas, United States of America, which has been sponsoring college
scholarships among indigenous peoples for ten years now in Davao, and has sent
around ten students on a student exchange scholarship programs to Texas A&M
University.
“Finishing na building. We will go to choosing the students
over the next two months. Classes start next semester ng University of
Southeastern Philippines (USEP), which is August yata,” Cariaga said through
personal message.
“Choosing the students and finalizing curriculum. Formal
Launch of program will be sometime in late May or early June 2017,” she added.
The students will be inmates of city jail main, city jail
annex and the women part.
Funding for the college will be provided by the Social
Entrepreneurship Institute (SEI), which will build and furnish the classrooms
at the Ma-a City Jail.
This will be the pilot project of SEI in the Philippines,
which intends to replicate the project nationwide once the city jail prototype
gets going.
Mizell and Cariaga has partnered with the USEP to design the
program for this. The inmates will be enrolled with USEP.
“Inmate students will read the same university-assigned
textbooks and complete the equivalent college level assignments as the ‘outside’
college students, and when they graduate, they will receive a diploma from the
USEP,” the press release sent by Cariaga read.
The USEP teachers will travel to the Ma-a Jail to teach
courses there, instead of on the university’s campus.
The inmates will be like any USEP student, which means, they
have to be assessed and screened for basic literacy and readiness for college
using assessment tools like the Test of Adult Basic Education to determine
their grades level, vocational assessments needs, length of sentence, security
clearance, among other.
Inmates will sign the agreement to enroll in a course and be
monitored for being on their best behavior at all times.
The SEI will be collaborating with USEP to plan out the
college degree and curriculum to be offered.
The program will offer several components – basic education,
vocational training, life skills development, and substance abuse intervention
with weekly sessions of celebrate recovery steps.
Those enrolled will have to sign a contract that commits
good behavior among others.
“After a semester of ongoing evaluation, courses in
entrepreneurship, languages, computers skills, health care, agriculture, and
critical thinking, anger management, and the General Educational Equivalence
Diploma will be added. Open learning and distance learning will be integrated
into the educational program,” SEI said.
To reduce recidivism once an inmate is released from prison,
SEI will establish a probation period and will maintain contact with the inmate
to link them up with establishments and agencies and facilitate their re-entry
into society.
There are penalties set out for violations of the contract.
The memorandum of agreement for college behind bars was
signed by Dr. Mizell, lawyer Cariaga, USEP President Dr. Lourdes Generalao, and
the Chief of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology Dir. Serafin Petronio
Barretto Jr., CESO IV for a Program on Prison Rehabilitation and College
Education behind Bars last September 28, 2016, at the House of Representatives.
Congresswoman Mylene Garcia Albano of the Second District of
Davao City, and Lawyer Lily Freida Milla, Davao City Jail Warden Superintendent
Grace Taculin and Assistant Warden Senior Inspector Roberto Gotico witnessed
the signing in Quezon City.
Source: UNTV
Davao City Jail To Launched First College Behind Bars For Prisoners In The PH By June This Year
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March 30, 2017
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