Cape Town - Despite President Jacob Zuma indicating that schooling should be obligatory, the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has said that it remains a legal challenge to force offenders to attend school.
Now, concerned legislators at Parliament are mulling over whether to amend the SA Schools Act to ensure that all prisoners of school-going age received an education while serving time.
This was revealed during a briefing by DCS officials to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Correctional Services on Wednesday.
The delegation was led by Chief Deputy Commissioner on Development and Care Nonsikelelo Jolingana.
Jolingana told the house that six centres had registered with the Department of Education to run full time schools. Seven more centres would have registered with the department by 2014.
Current running schools included Use Thubeni and Emthonjeni in KwaZulu-Natal and Barberton Youth Centre in Mpumalanga.
Some of the courses being studied included engineering, business, welding, building and textiles.
Jolingana said the schools taught prisoners from Grade 10 to 12 and 52 learners were currently writing their matric examinations.
Although they encouraged offenders to further their education, she said they did not pay for their fees.
Jolingana said some 12 outstanding prisoners had been sponsored to study further by the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Of concern to the MPs was that none of these schools catered for female prisoners.
Jolingana said they were trying to address the matter, highlighting that currently females were study short courses in areas such as computers.
She told the MPs that while they were taking education seriously, they could not force inmates to study. If they did so some of the prisoners would take them to court.
The committee said the department should employ a policy of "no work, no school, no parole" to ensure that inmates attended school.
