Problemas y sugerencias

My study is concerned with the investigation of managing the education of offenders for optimum rehabilitation. During data collection a lot was perceived that was to be clarified, disputed, or supported verbally during one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions.Questions 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, and 20 (Appendix H) elicited responses that pointed to factors that respondents male and female, officials and offenders collectively believe would improve the management of the education of offenders and result in their effective rehabilitation. Respondents agreed that these factors need to be looked atand taken into consideration when policy review is undertaken. These factors are presented subsequently.

4.3.4.1. Factors related to collective responses from officials and offenders

• The Department of Correctional Services mustformulate policy to compel every offender younger than age 60 to go to school at the state’s expense to redress the cognitive deprivation that offenders suffered for various reasons like poverty. Offenders over 60 may concentrate on the upkeep of the prison and any other menial duties within.

• Offenders whose sentences are shorter than five years must enter skills programmes and not be released until they are incorporated into learnerships or internships

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where they can convert their skills into cash, thereby preventing them from keeping the prison door revolving for them to come in and out as career criminals.

• Correctional schools must adopt the same operational school hours as those of formal schools to enhance correctional educational integrity.

• The Department of Education must monitor correctional schools and notallow any excuses to close school haphazardly and abruptly for reasons far removed from the interest of education. In this way disruption of school due to fights and threats of escape will be eliminated as most of the young offenders will be gainfully occupied in classrooms instead of vagabonding, idling or fighting as unruly aimless crowds looking for attention.

• Custodial officers must be allocated specifically to education to perform guard duties wherever educationists need to take participants in the education programme in order to eliminate threats to safety and security while advancing rehabilitation. • Open spaces within the prison canbe furnished ideally to serve as classrooms

including bathroom areas of cells during day time.

• Offenders who are already working as teachers deserve to be granted bursaries to further their studies and become qualified in their profession.

• Department of Education must facilitate the financing of offender teachers by acknowledging them and evaluating their professional ability and performance as regularly as is done for trainee teachers studying through universities.

• Institutions of higher learning must accept offenders at tertiary level to study programmes that do not require practical assessment and provide financial aid to them in the same way they do for all deserving mainstream learners.

• Business sector must come on board and absorb released offendersasinternstodevelop skills in the fields of their study and take them on permanently after their probation in order to prevent unemployment prompted recidivism.

The above suggestions are the reflection of the meaning that respondents make of their lived experiences as expressed during data gathering presented as collective perceptions, suggestions and possible way forwardthat they envisioned regarding how best the education of offenders can be managed for optimum rehabilitation.

121 4.4. Conclusion

In this chapter I endeavoured to use dataas a source of my understanding of the experiences, perceptions, perspectives and the meaning that respondents make of managing the education of offenders for optimum rehabilitation. I had only this data as a means to bring me to the findings presented in this chapter. The correctional education community is highly dedicated and passionate about managing the education of offenders. Equally the custodial officers and officials yearn to release rehabilitated offenders capable of being successfully reintegrated back into society. The common denominator between this set of colleagues is to release modelex-offenders who become ambassadors of the correctional system by leading productive and crime free lives while adding value into the lives of fellow citizens. They view each released offender as a correctional success story. Offenders who participate in the education programme are in the programme solely to achieve rehabilitation and leave prison as reformed people. To them correctional education is the only means to change their lives and give them a future. They cry for the redress thatthey were promised when they first voted in 1994. They strive against all challenges to access education and they recognize the conflicting attitudes within which their education operates. The prevailing rapport between offenders and their rehabilitators inspires hope. None of the staff members is a threat to the progress of offenders’ education, rehabilitation or reintegration. What I found awe inspiring is the cohesion and harmony in the viewsof the correctional community.Problems that compromise the management of their education are perceived from the same lens.

The major challenge between these two categories of colleagues (custodial and educational) is that their workentails managing the same people differently yet simultaneously. What emerged was that issues of policy rank highest of the challenges facing the management of correctional education. Even the clash between the core responsibilities of the Department of Correctional Services which are rehabilitation and security is deeply rooted in the policies of the department. One thing is certain though, that this community is more than ready to implement the first policy that enables them to effectively rehabilitate offenders.

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CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter of the research report bringsthe study to conclusion by reflecting on the research journey travelled this far. It does this by drawing conclusions on the study as a whole, evaluating the study and acknowledging the limitations encountered and making the relevant recommendations.