OVER 100 inmates at the Cagayan de Oro City Jail in Barangay Lumbia are given the chance to pursue education after the Senior High School program now being offered inside the detention facility.
The Senior High School Education is now offered for Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDL) at the city jail following the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) last Thursday, August 16, at the Dalawan Center of the city jail-male dormitory.
The Senior High School program is offered on top of the present essential education program such as Elementary and Junior High School with more than 200 detainees currently enrolled.
"Senior High School which was in the old curriculum comparable to 1st and 2nd years in college is a breakthrough educational offering for the Persons Deprived of Liberty," the city jail said in a statement.
Jail Officer 3 (JO3) Orlando Montalban, Information and Community Relations Service Officer, said the inmates who were signed up for the program will undergo 10 months academic intervention.
He said classes will ensue after the MOA was signed with more than 100 inmates already qualified and enrolled in the program.
"Nag initial profiling na ta tapos ang proper enrollment will be after the teachers orientation this Monday," Montalban said.
Montalban said the launching of the Senior High Alternative Response Education Delivery or SHARED option in the city jail is one of the programs of the Bureau of Alternative Learning System of the Department of Education, this city.
BJMP-Northern Mindanao officials said education is an important tool for PDL to alleviate themselves from poverty, free themselves from injustice and liberate themselves from ignorance once they avail the offer wholeheartedly.
"It is one of the ways by which PDL will be empowered to change their lives and certainly, the jail bureau through it, can contribute to building a safer nation," BJMP-Northern Mindanao director Senior Superintendent Luisito Munoz and city jail warden Superintendent Erwin Kenny Ronquillo, both said.