Three quarters of inmates follow educational programme

Three-quarters of the inmates in the island’s only correctional facility participated in its education programme in the past year, prison governor Anna Aristotelous said on Tuesday.

In the 2016-2017 academic year, 410 inmates took part, the governor said, up from 369 the previous year.

“The prison schools contribute to the realisation of the prison department’s goals as regards the prisoners’ education and reform so that their reintegration would be smoother and with a lower possibility of relapse,” she told the Cyprus News Agency.

Aristotelous said the prison education system mirrored that of the country, separated into formal education, informal, vocational training and tertiary education.

All educational programmes come with recognised certification, she said. In co-operation with the universities of Neapolis, in Paphos, Frederic and European, in Nicosia, 12 inmates can follow courses through distant learning or tutoring.

A ceremony marking the end of the school year will be held on Friday.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.