An Analysis of Prisons’ Staff Role in the Reintegration of the Prisoners

The central theme of this research is to explore the effectiveness of prisons staff in the reintegration of the prisoners with specific focus on Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) jails. Mixed method was adopted to carry out the study.  Seven high-profile jails within Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, one jail each, in all the seven administrative divisions, were purposively selected.  Of all 277 respondents, 250 comprised of jail inmates (under trial and convicted adults and juveniles male prisoners) were randomly selected within the seven jails of the province and interviewed through semi-structured questionnaire.  The remaining 27 respondents, purposively selected and interviewed through interview-guide included judges, lawyers, jail officials, human right activists and ex-prisoners.  Further, One focus group discussion was arranged to gain more deep insight into the phenomenon in question. Concurrent triangulation strategy was adopted for the collection and analysis of data.       It was found that prison staff in Pakistan is characterized by lack of will and skill to transform prisons into correction institutions. Their involvement in torturing the inmates, providing them proscribed stuff, sexual assaults on the prisoners, taking bribery for extending legal and illegal favors etc is deeply-seated within the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa prisons. Providing best trainings to the prisons’ staff considering modern-day needs, their salaries increase along with sound service structure, meritorious selection, transfer and up-gradation of the prisons’ employees, recruitment of the needed staff to bridge the staff-inmate huge gape and ensuring the effective accountability system of prisons are the suggested measures to overcome the problem at hand.

A Study of the Role Perception of Professional Development Teachers Pdt

The Institute for Educational Development has been a catalyst in introducing new perspectives, particularly, in the in-service teacher education. It is conducting several professional development programs and the M. Ed., in teacher education, is one of them. The IED's M. Ed. graduates are called Professional Development Teachers (PDTs). As per agreement with their management, the PDTs work with the IED and spend 50% of their time on the professional development of teachers through the Visiting Teachers (VT) programs. For the remaining 50% of their time, they work in their schools on school improvement and effectiveness. This study focuses on understanding the PDTs' role and to identify the challenges of their performance in the schools/IED. In order to understand the challenges related to the PDTs' role, a qualitative study was conducted with a group PDTs and other stakeholders. In order to gather relevant information, the research instruments including interviews, observation, document analysis were used. Attempt was made to deal with the issues such as validity, reliability, objectivity, and generalizibility. The study suggests that the PDTs' role performance was affected by some factors such as role overload, role ambiguity, role duality, and system's preference for new models of teacher education. The study has suggested that the PDTs have significantly contributed to the professional development of teachers at the IED, which has an ultimate impact on school improvement. Finally, the study proposes some recommendations related to IED and schools, which may enhance the understanding about the role of PDTs.