Nakarasan, 49, has been in and out of prison since his teenage years for offences such as robbery, vehicle theft and housebreaking.
When he was handed a 10-year prison sentence in 2015, the extent of the time he would be behind bars hit him.
“I wanted to change. I realised I was wasting my life,” Nakarasan, who did not want to give his full name, told The Straits Times.
Determined to make that his last incarceration, he enrolled in a Nitec course in electronics and computer networking in prison school to give himself a goal to work towards.
“I realised that education was my ticket to a new life. I wanted to break free, live with purpose and truly embrace the life I was meant to lead,” he said.
Nakarasan, who will be released in March 2025, is now in a halfway house for the last part of his sentence. He continued his studies in prison school in 2023, pursuing a diploma in business practice (administration and management) from Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP).
He completed the course in May and now works at a pharmaceutical company.
“This job has helped me rebuild my life. I am deeply appreciative of the trust and support I have received along the way,” he said.Nakarasan is one of 300 people who studied while in prison in 2023.
Classes are held on prison grounds in classrooms that – if one looks past the barred windows – resemble those in typical mainstream schools, with whiteboards and tables. Prison guards sometimes patrol the corridor outside the classrooms. Lessons can be held both in person and virtually.Over the years, the courses offered in prison school have expanded beyond the national examinations, giving inmates more chances at better prospects when they return to society.
The Singapore Prison Service (SPS) collaborated with NP in 2018 to begin offering a diploma in business practice course for inmates. In 2020, a degree programme from the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) was added to the prison school.
The prison school also started offering the Institute of Technical Education’s Nitec in services course in 2021.
The number of inmates taking the diploma course offered by NP has gone up from 16 in 2022 to 38 in 2023. The inmates pursuing degrees also doubled in number, from three in 2022 to six in 2023.
SUSS said it has plans to introduce more part-time undergraduate programmes to prison school students, adding that about 70% of its inmate population have secondary-level education or below.
“Hence, availing education and skills training programmes is important to help raise inmates’ economic capital and increase their employability upon release,” it said. — The Straits Times/ANN
