Switching to the blended education model in the training of Turkish criminal execution personnel (2022)

In the global era, where distance education has gained more importance with the impact of Covid-19, the Turkish penitentiary staff training system has also switched to the blended education model as of the beginning of 2022.

As of March 2020, face-to-face trainings in personnel training centres were temporarily suspended by the Ministry of Justice within the framework of pandemic measures. Despite this, the General Directorate of Prisons and Detention Houses, which attaches special importance to the development of its existing distance education capacity, has continued to provide distance trainings needed by the staff despite the pandemic conditions.

To this end, the works required for the transition to blended education, especially the creation of studios in personnel training centres, the realisation of summit meetings, the transformation of existing face-to-face education content into distance education content and performing trainings of the trainers have been completed.

With blended education; increasing professional competencies of the penitentiary staff will be possible with a structured training model consisting of three phases, including one-week orientation training in the penitentiary institutions, then obtaining the content of two-week distance training via educational technologies, and lastly participation to the application-based face-to-face training phase covering a two-week period in the personnel training centres.