The beneficiaries will get a grant of N500,000 once they
complete the skills acquisition programme.
Some of the available vocational skills include fashion
design, computer training, hair making, fish farming, soap making, poultry
business and others.
The Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on
Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Education, Abiola Arogundade, said
this during a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday.
The Nigerian Correctional Service has a total of 241
custodial facilities, 85 satellite custodial centres, 15 farm centres, two
custodial open camps, four institutions, seven training schools and
non-custodial services across the country.
She said, “We launched the scheme in Kuje we took a few
members to do an audit on the needs of the inmates. Every single person we
train there is also going to be certified. We are partnering with global bodies
to ensure any skill you acquire in Nigeria will be recognised worldwide. At the
end of their prison term and our training, we give them N500,000 to set up
their business so they don’t become a second-time offender after leaving the
correctional centre. This scheme is ongoing.
“After Kuje Correctional Centre, we are moving to Suleja. We
are going to try and duplicate this intervention in all our correctional
facilities. We are also working with the Bank of Industry. For instance, we
will train the beneficiaries on how to have the best skills in hairdressing, in
a kiosk they can also use for POS and other business ventures. We are
partnering with banks. They will supply the POS in a place where people can
also come in to charge phones. We are using that as a multi-purpose intervention
for three streams of income after we train and certify them.
“In the correctional centre in Kuje, they have already
started things like fashion designs where they are using modern equipment. We
are going to donate more state-of-the-art sewing machines. They complained a
lot about computers hence we will be donating laptops. We have different
modules for training. Some are for six months of training while others are for
nine months.”
Only 500 inmates from each facility will be considered after
the official take-off of the pilot scheme in Kuje Centre, which currently has a
capacity of 723 inmates.
While stressing that the targets are those who have few
months left on their sentences, she disclosed that the programme was modelled
after a similar scheme being run successfully in Norwegian prisons.
She said, “Our target is to start with people closer to the
end of their sentence so that as you regain your freedom, you leave with the
skills and the N500,000 grant. We have looked at some case studies in other
countries, like the Norwegian prisons to see what they did because they have a
very low second time offenders rate. So we have been working with that very
closely.”
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