The whole class paid attention to the blackboard, she only read it wherever she went: Khuyen, snow, spring, …” Teacher Chu Thi Hong’s voice resounded in the middle of the literacy class for prisoners of Yen Ha Prison in those days. close to Tet.
Behind the gate of Sub-camp No. 1, Ha Yen Prison (Phu Yen district, Son La province) has a special class for those who wear “striped shirts”.
It is a literacy class for prisoners at the prison that takes place in the mornings from Monday to Friday.
Standing on the podium, female Captain Chu Thi Hong holds a ruler and spells out each word “framework”, “polite”,… for the students below to read along. The youngest student of teacher Hong is over 20 years old and the oldest student is almost 60…
Participating in the class, all prisoners can not only write but can’t read. From the initial scribbles, after a few months of persistent study, many prisoners were able to write letters to their families.
Every year, Yen Ha Prison organizes 2 literacy classes, each class has 35 inmates, the study period lasts 9 months with 2 teachers, Captain Chu Thi Hong, officer of Yen Ha Prison and Ms. Chu Thi Thu. , contract teachers.
Classrooms are arranged in a large hall, about 200 m2 wide, the students are regardless of age.
The sound of tapping the ruler on the board mixed with her reading first, the chorus of reading after “discipline”, “polite” sounded very special.
The lesson is counted as a re-education labor session. The results of the course are the basis for assessing the completion of the rehabilitation of prisoners.
Students here are mainly elderly, ethnic minorities, even many people do not speak Vietnamese fluently, so learning letters is difficult. Therefore, teachers cannot be in a hurry but must patiently and persistently teach inmates. Many students can read the words today, but tomorrow they will forget them all.
It took an elderly prisoner more than a minute to spell the word “framework”. This inmate said that, because he was illiterate, he was old, but when he entered the prison, he began to learn to read and write.
The person who teaches the class is an officer of Ha Yen prison, but the Phu Yen District Education and Training Department will be responsible for the professional aspects. Up to now, Yen Ha Prison has eradicated illiteracy for nearly 700 inmates.
Vang A Sang (from Dien Bien) was illiterate when he entered the camp, and when he learned that there was an literacy class at the camp, he applied for school and studied very hard.
To confided, since I learned to read and write, I have had more positive thoughts. The nearest thing Sang thinks about is writing a letter to his family.
According to Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Chien, Superintendent of Yen Ha Prison, inmates at the camp are mainly managing and detaining people who live in remote and mountainous areas in the North, with a good level of legal knowledge. is still limited, many inmates are illiterate (accounting for nearly 17% of the total prison inmates under management).
Teaching inmates will help them have a better awareness, repent of their own crimes, and improve well so that when they are released from prison, they will be useful to society when they return to the community.