Malawi Prison Service says all female prisoners interested in pursuing secondary school education will be studying for free at Mzuzu Girls Private Secondary School which is within Mzuzu Prison Campus.
The school is run by Malawi Prisons Service and has competent teachers, both Prison Officers and Civilians.
The Malawi Prison Service hopes this will ensure equitable access to quality education between male and female prisoners.
“Female Prisoners will access education at this facility for free and will be provided with all the learning materials,” the prison service wrote on its Facebook page.
In the 2021 Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) exams, 44 out of 79 inmates who sat for the examinations in prisons passed. The best performer is from Mzuzu Prison and scored 18 points.
Prison Spokesperson, Chimwemwe Shawa told Malawi News Agency on Thursday that the pass rate has increased from 50 percent in 2020 to 55.6 percent in 2021.
“To us, this is an indication that we are providing reformative, arbitrative and re-introgression programs in inmates amidst the challenge that we are facing in the field of education,” Shawa said.
Education activist who is also Executive Director for Civil Society Education Coalition (CSEC), Benedicto Kondowe, said there is need to provide enabling environment in prisons, appreciating that the places are already constrained in terms of infrastructure.
