The University of Makeni (UniMak) has resumed Certificate Courses for inmates in the Makeni Correctional Centre, after two years pause.

In 2018, both the UniMak and the Sierra Leone Correctional Service reached an agreement for inmates to benefit from university courses. UniMak decided to pilot the idea in 2021 by introducing a certificate course in Community Development Studies (for a period of six months).

Modules that encompass the course are: Communication Skills, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Information Technology, among others.

At the time, seventeen inmates who met the threshold of having acquired at least two credits at their WASSCE were enrolled at the course. These inmates graduated, and were given certificates (which did not indicate that they studied the course behind bars).

In this phase of the project, there are twenty (20) male and three (3) female inmates from Makeni who meet the requirements to be enrolled for the course.

Officer- in- Charge of the Makeni Correctional Centre, Chief Superintendent of Corrections Abubakarr Kamara said: “UniMak is doing this at no cost on the Correctional Service or anyone else- they are doing it for free”.

He appealed to donor partners to come to the aid of UniMak by rendering both financial and material assistance. This, according to him, will ensure that the project is not short-lived.

Speaking on behalf of UniMak, Rev. Fr. Dr. George Gbamaja encouraged inmates and the SLCS to take the project seriously, adding attendance, tests, and exams will be taken as part of their assessment of the students.

Classes will be conducted inside the Makeni Correctional Centre in a structure with an original capacity for thirty (30) students.