The death row inmates, officers behind prison cells exam success
What you need to know:
- Bold step. Two convicts on death row threw the worry about death to the wind and concentrated on helping illiterate colleagues attain formal education.
- The former condemned prisoner, now serving 20 years without remission and has taught fellow inmates for the last 17 years, says: “I am proud that people who got the chance of leaving prison are successful. If someone sends me appreciation message and another sends Shs100,000, that is an achievement.”
Kampala. “I was jailed after completing Senior Six and I was sentenced to death in 2003. But what triggered my quest for education in prison was the need to show the public that a jailbird has reformed and also my desire to fight the death penalty. That is when I joined teaching to help my friends who did not get education while outside prison,” says Dennis Mujuni, one of the pioneers of education in prison.
Mujuni, the head of secondary school education, also teaches History and Commerce, explains that the inmates embarked on education to help their colleagues overcome the problem of writing letters to court and communicating to their visitors, especially those from outside prison.
The former condemned prisoner, now serving 20 years without remission and has taught fellow inmates for the last 17 years, says: “I am proud that people who got the chance of leaving prison are successful. If someone sends me appreciation message and another sends Shs100,000, that is an achievement.”
“The discipline at prisons breaks the old perception that inmates are hardcore criminals who always fight. But performance of our school would be as good as any other school, if government takes over the primary section because it is the foundation of education and this is a special needs school,” he pleads.
Taking a bold step
Just like Mujuni, another prisoner, Fred Ndorere, who is in charge of the primary school section, says he started teaching in 1999 soon after he was condemned to death.
“Before prison, I had taught for some time then joined business but because teaching is a calling, immediately I was imprisoned, I started teaching and in 2000, we registered the first candidates for Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE),” Ndorere says.
He recalls: “When I arrived in the condemned section, I found that most people who committed offences are those who had never gone to school. By then, of the 250 condemned prisoners, less than 100 had reached Primary Seven school level. I thought the best way to go through this imprisonment is to help my brothers to kick out of ignorance.”
Ndorere says that knowing God while in prison also encouraged him to help fellow inmates by consoling and advising them to remain focused with the hope that one time, they would get out of the condemned section and prison to interact with the society outside.
“I am proud today because after helping to change people’s ways through education, I have seen the hand of God at work. I have since been moved from the condemned section to the Boma. And back home, my children were helped to attain education up to university,” he says.
The Assistant Commissioner of Prisons, Mr Celestine Twesigye, who heads Luzira Upper Prison, describes the education there as a strategy to improve the quality of people while in prison.
“Our teaching is done by a team including prison officers, civilian teachers and inmates themselves. We lock up people here but not their brains and we use various settings to tell prisoners the importance of education to change their livelihood with knowledge. We counsel them to make them understand that prison is not the worst and that they are still useful people,” Mr Twesigye says.
But he says because of the scarcity of resources in prison, their education is based on the principal of sharing. “And those who excel in national examinations are the role models to the rest,” he adds.
He explains that unlike in the outside world, school day at prison starts with ‘unlock and head count’ and there are no morning and evening preps because ‘lock up’ is at 3.30pm and affected by security functions.
“If we count and numbers do not tally, all activities stop until numbers are confirmed. Again, we have midday counting and this also affects the learning,” Mr Twesigye says, but stresses that the qualifications attained is a big step since the exams results are valid for years.
According to Mr Tumwesigye, the inmates who attain better grades are admitted to pursue diplomas in Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management under Makerere University Business School, while others join the University of London, which offers a Bachelor in Common Law and other courses at certificate level.
“Inmates have written books, they are in legal profession and many others are contributing to the development of the country due to improved understanding and one of the landmark judgments in Uganda’s jurisprudence of Susan Kigula and others against the Attorney General was a result of our education,” he reveals.
Mr Gilbert Niwamanya, the head of schools at Luzira prisons, says teaching of prisoners is different from that of the mainstream schools due to the limited resources and time the teachers spend with learners.
He says that although prisoners in school do not do any other activities, all do not study on weekends because they use such days to compensate prison work like ward mopping and washing clothes.
Mr Niwamanya says no exceptional skills are needed to teach inmates but the teachers are equipped with counselling and guidance skills due to the uniqueness of students’ problems such as court issues and stress arising from domestic problems.
“We have interlude trainings in the course of the term and holiday workshops in Bible studies, peacemaking, conflict resolution, anger and stress management. This helps the teachers to look at prisoners with a positive attitude,” he adds.
Background
Education in Luzira Prisons started in the 1990s in the condemned section after illiteracy was discovered to be a big problem during Bible study sessions. According to the prisons officers and teachers at the prison, lack of education was also discovered to be one of the major causes of conflict between people and the law. Although education is a right, not all people have had the chance to access it due to its demands. Nevertheless, when court sends someone to prison, education is not one of the rights denied them because it is one of their entitlements to improving their quality of life.