A Bihar jail will turn into an examination centre for inmates next week, bringing to fruition a 10-month effort to educate prisoners.
The Beur Central Jail in Patna will become the first jail in the state to hold examinations for inmates. The examinations are being offered for three courses inmates were allowed to pursue within the premises.
The jail, which has been in the news time and again with the dons-turned-politicians and notorious gangsters housed there, will have the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) conduct examinations beginning Dec 7.
IGNOU started a free study centre in the jail for inmates early this year.
Regional director of IGNOU S.S. Jena, the brain behind the study centre, said the examinations were being held after completion of the six-month courses.
The administrative block of the jail would serve as examination centre and jail authorities, along with IGNOU officials, would conduct and supervise the examination. Sources in IGNOU refused to reveal the number of examinees.
The courses offered by IGNOU include a six-month certificate course in human rights (CHR), Bachelor Preparatory Programme (BPP) and Bachelor of Arts (BA).
It will soon introduce courses like health and family education, food and nutrition and computing. IGNOU will also offer bachelor courses in arts and commerce.
Jena said several inmates had completed the six-month BPP programme and were eligible for admission to the three-year degree course under IGNOU.
The response to IGNOU courses was very good, Jena said, but some prisoners, mostly under-trials, dropped out after getting bail from different courts.
IGNOU is keen to set up study centres in other central jails, he said. In case the prisoner is released or gets bail during the study term, he or she can enrol in any of the 1,100 IGNOU study centres across India.
Reading material is provided by IGNOU. It plans to establish a library within the jail and provide television and videocassette recorder sets for the study centre.
IGNOU hired prisoners who had the required qualifications and involved them in teaching other inmates and paid them for their services.
Bihar has 54 prisons - six central jails, 24 district jails and 24 sub-jails. They house nearly 36,000 prisoners against a capacity of 20,459.
Delhi's Tihar jail was the first in India where IGNOU started a study centre for prisoners, followed by jails in Jaipur in Rajasthan and Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
--Indo-Asian News Service