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Thai inmate graduates from junior high school program in Tainan Prison

A Thai national who is serving a 14-year prison term in Tainan prison said yesterday he is excited to be graduating from a junior-high-school program offered by a special in-prison education facility.

"It was a big surprise for me to find out that prisoners could attend classes instead of going on work details," said the inmate, who goes by the name of Wuti.

"This kind of privilege does not exist in Thailand," he said.

Wuti will graduate today from the junior-high-school section of Shuteh Supplementary School, an affiliate of Tainan Prison.

He will be the first foreign inmate to graduate from a prison school in this country.

Wuti, 28, came to Taiwan in June 1996 to work at a plastics factory in Tainan County. He was sentenced to 14 years in July 1998 for involuntary manslaughter.

With encouragement from prison instructors, Wuti entered the Shuteh junior-high-school section in 1999.

"At the beginning, I had a hard time studying the Chinese language. Thanks to patient guidance from my Chinese language teacher, Huang Chiu-feng, I finally started to make headway. I quickly learned how to use a dictionary and I made progress in all academic fields," Wuti recalled.

He said Chinese class used to be the most difficult.

"But now it's my favorite subject. After mastering Chinese, I find it easy to study Chinese history and geography. I have often obtained the highest marks in my history class," he said.

Wuti, who can now speak fluent Mandarin Chinese and easily read Chinese newspapers and text books, said the prison term has turned out to be a boon for him.

"I'll work as a tour guide for Taiwanese tourists after my release from jail and returning to my home country," said Wuti, who will qualify for parole in a year-and-a-half.
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