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Education Problems of Juvenile Prisoners

April 29, 2015
 Natia Gogolashvili

In accordance to the Article 14 Part I – “b” of the Prison Code of Georgia, accused/convict has right to receive both comprehensive and vocational education. Underage convicts and accused have been enjoying this right for several years already. Nowadays, juvenile convicts are placed in prison # 11 and juvenile accused people are in special facilities of Prison # 8 and Prison # 2.

Education of Juvenile Convicts

Inmates of prison # 11 receive comprehensive education according to the standards used in the civil sector. The prison school is appended to the Tbilisi Public School # 123 and juvenile prisoners can take school certificates which will not state that the certificate was issued by penitentiary establishment. 

Director of Public School # 123 Tamar Losaberidze said their school joined the educational program in 2007, which was implemented stage by stage. Initially, lessons were conducted only for male juvenile inmates of prison # 11 but later female juveniles from prison # 5 also joined the process. Tamar Losaberidze said, according to the registration journal currently 48 juvenile prisoners are officially registered in public school # 123. However the number is permanently changed because some of them reach adult age and change facility; others are released from prison, etc. Currently, 21 pupils attend classes and the administration is processing documents of five more pupils.

In accordance to the 2014 Parliamentary Report of Public Defender of Georgia, there is a library and working rooms for social workers in the school building. Convicted pupils can take full 12 grades of secondary education. Maximum length of each lesson is 30 minutes and they attend maximum 5 lessons a day with 5-minute breaks.  The motivation of this difference is not to overwhelm convicts with educational process.

On March 31, 2015 representatives of Human Rights Center paid visit to the prison # 11 in the frame of the project implemented with the financial support of the Bulgarian Embassy in Georgia. They visited the school functioning in the territory of facility, talked with juvenile prisoners and their teachers.

Co-director of Human Rights Center Nino Tsagareishvili said there is well-equipped library in the school with plenty of literature in it; prisoners have free access to the library. However the problem is that the library has a few books in other languages. “For example, there are no books in Azerbaijan language that deprives ethnic Azerbaijan prisoner of the opportunity to read books in his native language. Also, there is no individual program for ethnic Azerbaijani prisoners, who know neither Georgian nor Russian languages,” Nino Tsagareishvili said.

Comprehensive education in penitentiary establishment is voluntary.  Director of the public school # 123 clarifies that if a juvenile has desire to study, his/her legal representative or a parent should lodge application to the school. Afterwards the school starts collection of information about the juvenile. According to Losaberidze, the school faces various problems when collecting information about the juvenile.

“According to the national education plan only basic and primary classes are obligatory. After the 9th grade the juvenile has right to choose; he can also choose vocational education. However, many juveniles try to continue with comprehensive education and finish public schools. Another problem is that sometimes families do not support children. Juveniles cannot write application themselves instead their parents. For that reason sometimes we have to wait 1-2 months. However, it should be noted that in similar situations the penitentiary establishment helps us. We have drafted two forms of application and left in the establishment. So, either psychologist or social worker helps parents to fill in the application. Afterwards we register the application and address to the Ministry with official request. Based on their permission and parent’s application, we prepare a proposal to the school, where the convicted child studied before imprisonment; request his/her personal information and estimate the stage of his/her education at that moment,” Tamar Losaberidze said.

Chairman of the nongovernmental organization Initiative for the Rehabilitation of Vulnerable Groups Tato Kelbakiani said it is also a problem that juveniles stop education for some time and after they are placed in penitentiary establishments they wish to continue studies. “If a child has stopped studying, his level should be evaluated and then be recruited in relevant form. If his/her age does not coincide with his/her education level or he/she has special needs, special programs must be developed for his/her. They need individual educational programs. I think the Ministry of Education is not adequately prepared to address this problem and implement individual programs. In general, there is little resource even in public schools to implement individual approaches to pupils. It is necessary to work out effective mechanism in this direction.”

Tamar Losaberidze said it is also a problem when convict does not clearly remember which school they went to before imprisonment. Similar situation complicates procedures. “Now we deal with similar problem. 17-year-old girl was placed in the prison for female convicts, who has desire to study. Now we have to estimate which school she went to. She said initially she studied in the public school # 160 but then went to the private school “Sakmeveli”. This school was closed and we cannot find her data in the data base. Currently we have to request information from the schools she has mentioned. Afterwards, we will schedule lessons for her and she will take ordinary classes regardless the fact how many pupils will be in one class.”

Juvenile convicts can go through the school program in extern form and pass to next stage of education.

Gvantsa Kuparadze was 14 when she was arrested on November 14, 2006 and placed in prison # 5. In 2007, the court sentenced her to 10-year-imprisonment; Gvantsa spent five years in the penitentiary establishment. Gvantsa told humanrights.ge that in 2006 the prison administration hardly found even a free cell for her not to speak about educational institution at all.

Gvantsa Kuparadze recalled: “Before 2009 I did not have chance to get education. I personally asked for various books and family sent me them in parcels; I studied individually. Nobody prohibited me to study in the prison. Teachers entered the prison in September 2009. There were about 5 juvenile convicts in the prison by that time. I took 4 educational programs from 2009 to 2011 because in the moment of arrest I was in the ninth form and we started lessons in the prison with the ninth form program. The teachers decided that I should go through the programs in extern form in order not to catch up my pals. In 2011 I passed the final exams according to the so-called CAT program and took United National Exams for high school; I passed exams for the law faculty. Ten teachers were teaching us in prison. We took all subjects according to the school program. Lessons started at 10:00 am as it is according to the school curriculum. Sometimes teachers stayed in the establishment even until 18:00 pm to give extra classes to us to compensate the missed time.”

Although Gvantsa Kuparadze entered the law faculty of high school, she could not enjoy her right to education because high schools do not implement distance education services in Georgia. The state refused to pardon or early-release Kuparadze. It is still acute problem today. So, Human Rights Center recommends to the Ministry of Education to facilitate introduction of distance education services in the curriculum of state universities that will increase motivation for juvenile prisoners to study.

“There are cases when juvenile prisoners passed entrance exams for high schools but they could not continue with studies because they reached adult age and continued their term in ordinary prisons where there is no chance for convicts to get high education. Besides, as teachers say, the convicts have motivation to get good marks because they believe if they study well it will increase their chances to be early released and pardoned. It should be noted that we also observed that one part of pupils attended lessons and were active in the process,” Nino Tsagareishvili said.

According to the director of the public school # 123 in 2007 teachers were selected as a result of competition. The competition was conducted throughout Georgia and anybody could participate in it. The selected teachers work in different schools; some of them work only in the prison school.

Nino Tsagareishvili said it is a problem that teachers rarely take trainings on communication with prisoners, on education methods and approaches. “Teachers said they took training only once 4 or 5 years ago. Considering the fact that education of juvenile prisoners is urgently important for their full integration into the society, it is necessary that teachers were adequately trained and qualified.”

Tinatin Archvadze, Russian language teacher at public school # 123, teaches Russian language to juvenile girls. She joined the program from the first days and said they took trainings on the communication with juvenile prisoners only in the initial stage.

“We took training when the program launched but have not attended any trainings for a long time. Psychologists also trained us in the communication with juvenile convicts. Of course they need specific approach. We do not start communication with them with lessons but with casual communication. It is psychological works to come closer to them and get their trust. Of course we treat them with love and generosity. We treat each juvenile individually, including ethnic minorities. We also organize various activities. We actively use visual methods and technologies of education that is very important. We try to make the schooling process very interesting,” Tinatin Archvadze said.

Tamar Losaberidze said this year 9 pupils of the eleventh form and 8 pupils of the twelfth form are registered for the CAT program exam; 2 pupils of the twelfth form will take United National Exams. According to the director, she receives reports from the penitentiary establishment on daily basis and sends them to the Ministry of Education periodically.

“I, as a director, often go to the prison school and talk with children. I want to have permanent communication with them. 14 teachers work there and one of them is group mentor. She reports to us on daily basis; we also monitor registration journals and have permanent communication with the Ministry,” Tamar Losaberidze said.

Education of accused juveniles

Unlike prison # 11, education programs of prison # 8 and prison # 2 are not appended to any public schools. Consequently, accused juveniles do not get certifications on general education. In accordance to the 2014 parliamentary report of the Public Defender of Georgia this circumstance will cause indifferent approach of accused juveniles to the education process.

Regional director of the Penalty Reform International Tsira Tchanturia said education of accused juveniles is problem because education program is not relevant to their needs. She said juveniles are of different age and they require individual approach.

According to the Public Defender’s recommendation, in order to facilitate non-stop education, the state should take measures to enable accused juveniles to get full education.
 
“From the second half of 2012 juvenile inmates of Tbilisi prison # 8 and Kutaisi prison # 2 also have education program but it is negative that general or full education they receive in the penitentiary establishment cannot become ground to get education certificate. In practice accused juveniles often spend 9 months (maximum term for pre-trial detention) in the aforementioned establishments. In addition to that, there are cases when due to security means juveniles are taken from prison # 11 into prison # 8 or prison # 2. Consequently, juveniles are deprived of possibility to get education for a long time,” 2013 Parliamentary Report of Public Defender reads.

“It is impossible to foresee how long time the accused juvenile will spend in the penitentiary establishment. So, it is very difficult to organize the full educational process. Currently, they have teachers of some subjects who teach children in many fields in order to enhance their strong sides; they teach them according to non-standard curriculums and individually. The system must be improved. In order to ensure more involvement of children a new system for their motivation should be created,” Tato Kelbakiani said.

Director of public school # 123 said their several teachers, who participate in the program, enter the prison to give lessons to convicts. However, experts say education is not complete and current model should be improved.

This article was published within the frameworks of the project Monitoring State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia which is implemented by Human Rights Center in partnership with Office of Public Defender of Georgia, by the financial support of Embassy of Bulgaria.
The article does not necessarily reflect the views of the donor. Human Rights Center bears sole responsibility for the content of the report.

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