Prisoners receive IT training

The Department of Correctional Services plans to provide basic IT training to prisoners as part of their rehabilitation.

This follows a successful trial with the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) at two Western Cape prisons, in part sponsored by the Shuttleworth Foundation.

Forty inmates recently graduated from the pilot project and the second batch of 40 start ICDL training today.

ICDL in Africa CEO Jennifer van Niekerk says one woman who received her certificate last week has already been paroled and found employment on the basis of her qualification.

The Shuttleworth Foundation says it provided R175 000 to establish a computer laboratory at Pollsmoor prison and another at Malmesbury. Each lab contained 20 computers loaded with the Linux Ubuntu operating system and Open Office software. It also paid the R260 registration fee for each of the 20 women and 20 men on the course, in addition to providing manuals to each of the students.

Van Niekerk says her organisation paid R40 000 for the examinations. The course material was taken from the Internet and had been paid for by the Shuttleworth Foundation three years ago, during an earlier collaboration with the ICDL.

The foundation has since withdrawn from the project and Inkululeko Technologies, a Shuttleworth Foundation spin-off, has taken its place. Inkululeko set up the facilities and trained a warder at each facility to provide the training.

Prisons minister Ngconde Balfour says the department plans to have at least one computer centre in each of its 48 management areas within the next five years. "Our long-term vision, as correctional services, is to ensure every correctional facility has a computer-based learning and training centre that will provide offenders with access to these life-changing facilities."

Balfour adds that employers, educational institutions and government agencies in over 140 countries have hailed the ICDL as the international standard for computer literacy.

"The role the ICDL certification programme can play to develop offenders and maximise their ability to return to the workplace with real skills needed by the South African economy is a reality," he says.

Van Niekerk says the prisons department is "very committed" to the project. She says the ICDL is helping the department draft a budget and implementation plan for taking the programme national.

She adds that prisoners found the programme challenging, saying it helped them establish goals and rebuild a shattered self-image. "It helps them with their rehabilitation and the warders tell me the level of aggression among the women on the course has decreased."

Van Niekerk says a number of contact centres in the Pollsmoor vicinity have offered employment opportunities on the basis that the graduates have an internationally recognised qualification. The centres would also like to give the parolees a second opportunity at success.

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