Detainees contribute to Govt coffers
by S.M. Wijayaratne - Kurunegala Corr.
The government saved of Rs. 570 million last year using the labour of
detainees of prisons islandwide. Those detainees were engaged in
construction and manufacturing handicrafts under the guidance of
well-experienced govt. instructors of those fields. Those detainees were
thus vocationally trained for a better tomorrow after they discharge
from jail terms. More than 18,000 detainees were thus vocationally
trained during the past two years and they are able to be self-employed
when they finish their jail terms.
Not only that, those detainees were deployed in growing food crops
such as paddy and vegetables and the harvests thus obtained were used
for their own consumption in jails. That too led to save much money for
the government. In 2013, a special school would be opened up for
detainees in prisons to offer them with a sound general education to
guide them on how to live in the society as dignified and responsible
citizens of Sri Lanka after their rehabilitation process is over said
the Director of non-formal education in Kurunegala W.M. Jayasooriya at a
seminar on “The benefits of Non-Formal Education System in Sri Lanka”
for government school heads of the North Western Province recently in
Kurunegala.
School drop-outs would be socialised by way of training them on
useful vocations of their choice and 150,000 unemployed school drop-outs
would be thus trained during next six months as per the guidance of
Minister of Education Bandula Gunawardena and the Minister of Skills
Development and Youth Affairs Dullus Allahapperuma, Jayasooriya said. |