The Howard League for Penal Reform had a prisoner literacy programme graduation on Wednesday in the Auckland South Corrections Facility and we were delighted that Corrections Minister Judith Collins was there to hand out the certificates. This peer-to-peer literacy programme was pioneered in the Northland Region Corrections Facility and when the mentor prisoners were transferred to Auckland South Corrections Facility we managed to switch the programme there. Taxpayers fund an expensive and generally well-regarded compulsory education system which includes early childhood education, primary schools and secondary schools. Former Cabinet Minister John Tamihere quotes police statistics which show that two thirds of Maori prisoners begin their jail career with a driving offence. One of our very first literacy graduates at Hawke's Bay Regional Prison was a young Maori who managed to leave school at the age of ten.

Source: New Zealand Herald November 27, 2016 04:03 UTC