No fewer than 18 inmates of the Nigerian Correctional Service, NCoS, studying with the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, have graduated and bagged various degree certificates at the Corrections’ Special Study Centres, the Service announced on Thursday, February 4, 2021.
John Mrabure, the acting comptroller general of Corrections, has sent congratulatory messages to the inmates and charged them to see their educational advancement as a stepping stone to a brighter future.
Mrabure urged them to shun anti-social behaviours capable of tainting the new course of positive life they have chosen for themselves and be good ambassadors of both the Correctional Service and NOUN.
A statement signed by the spokesman of the Service, Francis Enobore noted that the Custodial Centres involved in the graduation exercise are Medium Security Custodial Centre Awka, Anambra State with one inmate; Maximum Security Custodial Centres Enugu, six inmates and Kirikiri Maximum Security Custodial Centre, Lagos State, six inmates.
Others are Medium Security Custodial Centre, Kuje four inmates, and Maximum Security Custodial Centre, Port Harcourt-Rivers State, one inmate.
Enobore said a total of 3,000 inmates are currently running different degree Programmes with the NOUN while 50 are undergoing National Certificates in Education, NCE, with Yewa College of Education, Ogun State.
According to him the Service presently has 12 Special Study Centres in different Custodial facilities across the country.
In 2014, the best graduating student of NOUN was an inmate in Maximum Security Custodial Centre, Enugu, and the feat was repeated in 2018 by another inmate in the same Custodial Centre, Enobore said.
Since the inception of the collaboration between the Service and NOUN, a total of 36 inmates have graduated in different fields of study such as Conflict and Peace Resolution, Political Science, Sociology, Guidance, and counseling, among others, the spokesman asserted.
Source: The Nation
