Govt to issue skills certificates to juvenile convicts
Ministry of Education and Sports Permanent Secretary Ketty Lamaro appears before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament on July 3, 2023. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA
The Ministry of Education and Sports, through the Directorate of Industrial Training, has started assessing employable skills and competencies that juveniles in conflict with the law can acquire while serving their sentences in remand homes.
In an interview yesterday, Ms Ketty Lamaro, the permanent secretary at the Education ministry, said much as they are not turning remand homes into vocational schools, juveniles need to get certificates for the skills they acquire.
“Remand homes fall under the Ministry of Gender but it is important that the children in remand homes are certified to qualify to be responsible and also employable young people. They can even create their own companies to create jobs and become useful to the country and their community,” she said last week while addressing members of Rotary Club of Upper Kololo at Naguru Remand Home.
Ms Mary Kyomugisha, the senior probation officer at the Gender ministry, in her remarks to the rotarians, said the skilling programme, rolled out in 2021, has contributed to the reduction in crime among juveniles and the number of repeat offenders.
“Since 2021, more than 400 children have been given level one certificates. Today we have 159 children, but only eight are girls. Most projects target the boy child. 54 have registered for DIT assessment, 25 in horticulture, and 15 in rabbit rearing so that when they return to the community, they are not looked at as criminals,” she said.
Poultry, tailoring, horticulture, piggery, mushroom growing, computer training, hair dressing and pedicure are the other life skills that Ms Kyomugisha said the Gender ministry is offering.
Ms Joyce Odoki, the president of Rotary Club of Upper Kololo, said in June, they partnered with Naguru Remand Home in their Boy Child Uplifting Programme and handed 500 chicks to the remand home for juveniles to learn how to raise chickens after which they would be assessed.
She said of the 500 birds, only two died, and to them, the juveniles scored more than 90 per cent success.
According to Mr Edward Kakembo, the Rotary District 9213 governor, during his last visit to remand homes around the country, he found Gulu with 155 juveniles, three of whom were girls. Naguru had 166, Arua had 101 boys, Kampiringisa with 195 boys and four girls, Hoima with 104 boys most of whom were facing capital offences such as murder, rape and robbery.
