This school is a prison

Education break-up of the 12,000-odd prisoners in Tihar shows that nearly 5,000 of them are illiterate. Another 5,000 have education below Class X level . All that means that at present, just 2,000-odd prisoners can actually avail of the educational facilities being provided by Tihar.

‘‘We started maintaining records of education-level of each prisoner to realise that most criminals have had very poor education. Various studies showed that prisoners who were getting education were not returning to crime. In 2005, for the first-time ever, the population in Tihar decreased corresponding to the previous year. The percentage of hardcore criminals has come down to 9 per cent from 13 per cent in previous years. That’s when we decided it was time to bring the huge chunk of illiterate prisoners into the education loop,’’ says Sunil Kumar. But given the numbers, that could only be possible if a school was opened inside the jail premises.

IN April this year, Director General (Tihar) R P Singh first submitted the proposal for opening a school inside the jail to the Delhi High Court. On May 19, the court gave its go-ahead. A high-powered committee was set up by the HC to determine how the school would be run and the curriculum it would follow. Last week, the Delhi government granted Rs 72.38 lakh to the Tihar administration for opening the school.

The school will work out of Jail No. 5 and 6 and will initially teach 1,200 prisoners. ‘‘The school will be set up in Jail 5, which is an adolescent prison and will cater to primary education needs of 800 prisoners between the age of 18 and 21. Another school will be set up in Jail 6, which is a female jail,’’ says Sunil Kumar.

‘‘PWD officials have been asked to improvise some wards in both jails and make them into a double-storeyed school. The plan is to hire 30 teachers as per the student:teacher ratio followed in MCD schools,’’ says Kumar. Stationary and books will be provided free by the Delhi government. The curriculum to be followed is still being debated though.

But all that will be settled before July 1 when the inmates attend their campus school.