A new joint proposal of the state education & prisons department has mooted basic literacy courses for unlettered inmates of central prisons in Tamil Nadu.

There are over 12,000 inmates in 10 central prisons for men & 5 special prisons for women. Several of them, who had discontinued their studies, had enrolled in distance education programmes & pursued various courses.

Many of them have bagged their masters & M.Phil degrees through the Indira Gandhi National Open University's distance education programme. However, the unschooled prisoners were left out.

To fix this, the education department proposed to conduct special bridge courses for them to enrol them in schools in the prisons to help them continue or kickstart their formal education.

"We conducted a survey in all the central prisons & identified as many as 653 inmates, both convicted & remanded prisoners, who aren't educated, following a proposal from the education department. The report has been submitted to the department authorities," said a senior official in the prison department.

Teachers of prison schools will be roped in for this initiative. In fact, literate inmates will also be asked to teach these prisoners. In addition, the department is also extending an opportunity for literate prisoners to upgrade their educational qualification. They can now opt for new courses, including those in the vocational stream.

"Education is one of the tools to discipline inmates during their incarceration & also check recidivism. Many prisoners who were released in the last 18 months thanked the department for the formal education provided to them," said another official.

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