The Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, Madam Winifred Asibi Bawa Dy-Yakah, has said the days prisons were perceived as places of punishment had become a thing of the past as they had been turned into places of acquisition of knowledge and skills. She said under the Presidential Special Initiative (PSI) on Distance Learning prisons had become reformatory areas that prisoners could use to acquire skills. “It is better to learn skills as prisoners and be beneficial to society on your release than to move about jobless", she said. Madam Dy-Yakah said this when she received reading materials and equipment on Monday in Wa from the PSI on Distance Learning Programme for the Wa Central Prisons. The items included English and mathematics textbooks, television sets and video compact discs, digital videodisc players and lesson notes on Junior High and Senior High schools. The inmates would acquire skills in catering, block laying and concreting, basic English and mathematics. Madam Dy-Yakah said education was the bedrock of development and that gains from the inmates of the prisons would help to decrease the illiteracy rate in the country and urged the inmates to take their training seriously to uplift their image in society. Madam Abena Agyakoma Kwarteng, National Coordinator of the Presidential Special Initiative (PSI) on Distance Learning, said government had identified the acquisition of skills as one of the surest ways of sustaining the socio-political stability of the nation. She said the PSI on Distance Learning had planned an open schooling in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) to attain the target of “Education for All". Madam Kwarteng said the programme was being carried out with support from the University of Education, Winneba, the Commonwealth of Learning and the Regional Training and Research Institute for Open and Distance Learning (RETRIDAL), a West African regional grouping of distance education providers.Source: GNA