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It was announced on Monday that the CDVEC Education Service to Prisons has introduced MOUS (Microsoft Office User Specialist) accreditation as part of its upgrading of the educational courses on offer in Dublin's prisons. Some prisoners in Ireland already have a number of other IT opportunities available to them, including the ECDL (European computer driving licence) certifications and a B.Sc. programme in IT that is available through distance learning in DCU.
Prodigy, the master distributor for MOUS examinations in Ireland, is supplying the prisons with the materials necessary to train offenders on how to use programmes such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. "We think this is going to be a very important part of the curriculum," said a spokesperson for the Education Service to Prisons. "It is likely that ECDL will be replaced by MOUS."
Currently the MOUS certification is being piloted in Mountjoy and in The Training Unit and is expected to be extended to other Dublin prisons, the spokesperson said.
Prison education consists of a partnership between the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and a range of educational agencies from the community, particularly Vocational Education Committees (VECs) and public library services. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform finances capital expenditure and the day-to-day running costs of the Education Units.
But the CDVEC is funding the inclusion of MOUS certifications in Dublin's prisons. It is hoped that other VECs, outside of Dublin, will decide to fund similar programmes in other prisons in Ireland.
"Prison education has grown greatly in recent decades, achieving a substantial presence in all prisons and engaging more than half of all prisoners voluntarily in classes," says Vincent Sammon, the CDVEC's Organiser of Education for Dublin prisons. "By international standards, this is an exceptionally high level of participation. Through the introduction of MOUS into the curriculum, we can now offer prisoners the opportunity to achieve certification that should prove valuable in the search for employment upon release."
Beyond IT skills, a broad programme of education is offered to prisoners ranging from basic literacy to Open University. The curriculum includes physical education, health education, social education, creative activities (art, drama, music, writing, video production and photography), as well as the more conventional school subjects leading to junior and leaving certificate examinations.
Other accredited courses such as City & Guilds, NCVA, ECDL, Pitman's Typewriting and Associated Board of the Royal College of Music are taught.
The CDVEC provides education in the Education Units of six Dublin prisons and Places of Detention. These are Mountjoy, The Dochas Centre, St. Patrick's Institution, The Training Unit, Arbour Hill and Wheatfield. The group will shortly be providing education in Clover Hill. The CDVEC also provides education in its Post-Release Centre, The Pathways Project as well as P.A.C.E. Training Workshop - a FAS funded Training Workshop for offenders on probation or parole. In excess of 100 teachers work in the CDVEC Education Service to prisons.
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