The Home Ministry’s own Regulations on Isolation demand that ‘staff at the centre should be capable staff with training in children’s reform.’ All staff at the facility in direct contact with the children are police officers. None of them are professionals trained in looking after children although they are with the Child Protection Unit of the Police Service and have received some in-house grounding on the basics of various aspects of children’s rights. Further, it states: The institutions should provide education and training to children, and it should take into account the children’s capabilities and interests when deciding the availability of such programmes (Article 15.a) The Juvenile Justice Bill proposes that all education provided to a child deemed dangerous, or who has been charged with an offence, should be necessary and specifically tailored to the needs of the said child. Article 11.c makes it incumbent upon those responsible for holding a child in detention to ensure that the child’s education is not interrupted as a result, and that such education should be appropriate to the child’s age and development. Children at Feydhoo Finolhu—no matter what age group they belong in or what capability they have—are taught together in one classroom. There have been vocational training programmes in different areas such as fire-fighting, electrical wiring and computer skills taught at the centre conducted for free by some businesses in Male’. All other classes--English Language, Mathematics, Positive Thinking and Art—are conducted by police officers. Police officers also provide ‘counselling’ as well as religious and a form of life-coaching referred to as ‘Advice Talk’ scheduled between ‘Preparation for Lights Off’ at 21:30-21:45, and ‘Lights Off’ at 22:00. The level of education provided to children at institutions of alternative care is envisaged by the Minimum Standards and other legal and policy instruments to be a preparation for children to rejoin the formal education system and/or to prepare them for reintegration into society. Judging from the official promotional literature on the Centre prepared by the police officers responsible for teaching the students, the standards of teaching—specifically in the English Language—are extremely low and would not be regarded as acceptable at any normal institute of learning in the country (See Appendix IV). There are no regulations governing relationships between staff and children, which according to the Minimum Standards, and also the proposed Juvenile Justice Bill should always be kept strictly professional. The risks of not doing so include favouritism and abuse of power. That favouritism is already occurring, and is condoned at the centre as was confirmed during interviews with the officer in charge who spoke of how some officers have become ‘virtual parents’ of certain children they feel particularly sympathetic towards. They [officers] feel sorry for some of the children, about how poor they are and how deprived. So they buy them [the particular child] toiletries and other necessities with their own money. 63