Prison education is vital – but it is neglected and failing

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The quality of education in young offender institutions (YOIs) in England has seriously declined, according to a recent report from Ofsted and the prisons inspectorate.

The report into these institutions, whose offenders are aged 15 to 18, referred to “steadily declining educational opportunities”. Among the failings listed were a lack of time allocated to education, lack of proper staff training, staff shortages and poor behaviour of learners.

It claimed that the curriculum is narrow, fragmented, and poorly resourced due to lack of investment in technology. Prison leaders do not accurately pinpoint what students need to learn, while learners with special educational needs and disabilities do not always get the support that they need. According to data from 2022, only 8.6% of young people who received custodial sentences passed five GCSEs, compared to 58.3% of those without convictions.

Indeed, there are similar issues across the prison system. The quality of education in too many prisons is not good enough. Research suggests prisoners are often disengaged in classes and education lacks challenge and purpose.

This is especially disheartening when research also shows that participation in education within prisons can improve learners’ self-esteem and reduce prison violence, as well as increasing the chances of getting a job once offenders are released.

Teaching reading

Many adults in prison, as well as children in YOIs, struggle to read. English education inspectorate Ofsted and its prisons counterpart have published two reviews on the teaching of reading in prisons. The first report, published in 2022, highlighted that many teaching staff did not know how to teach reading.

Inspectors found that reading teachers did not have suitable resources. There was not enough time for learners to practise reading, and weak assessment resulted in teachers not fully understanding why some learners were struggling to learn to read. Some prisons were over-relying on reading skills being taught by peer mentors, who are only supposed to support learners individually or in small groups.

The second report, from 2023, highlighted that although some progress had been made a year later, it was too slow. Inspectors found that teachers still did not know how to improve reading skills. They also found that teachers did not monitor students’ progress, and interventions to support reading, particularly for non-English speakers, were not adequate.

Special educational needs

Too many pupils with special educational needs are excluded from schools and data shows that exclusion rates are higher for this group compared to those who do not have special educational needs. Many young people who are excluded from schools end up in prison, resulting in a high proportion of prisoners who have some form of learning difficulty or disability.

According to a House of Commons report from 2022, over 30% of prisoners have a learning difficulty or experience learning challenges.

In 2016 the Coates review of prison education made several recommendations to improve the quality of education in prisons. These included a focus on special educational needs – improving the assessment of educational needs on entry and more rigorous screening for prisoners with learning difficulties or disabilities.

The review recommended that all prisoners should have a personal learning plan. Also, better quality teachers were needed and prisons needed to find ways of improving attendance in education classes

Coates recommended that learners with special educational needs and disabilities needed better quality support and that prisoners needed to be able to continue their courses when they moved prisons. Unfortunately, evidence shows that in many prisons these recommendations have not been addressed.

Making changes

Another problem is that the growing prison population has led to overcrowding, resulting in poor conditions which make studying difficult.

Work with prisoners by charities such as the Prison Reform Trust and the Prisoners’ Education Trust highlights some important recommendations which will improve the quality of education in prisons. These include widening the curriculum in prisons so that prisoners can select options from a wider range of courses.

One recommendation is to provide better incentives to prisoners to encourage them to study. This could be done by paying them the same weekly “wage” as prisoners who choose work-related activities. Increasing the number of learning mentors will help ensure that prisoners get the support they need.

Finally, introducing flexible education timetables would mean that education classes can also run in the evenings as well as during the day. This will mean that more prisoners can take part in education classes, because more classes can be timetabled across the day. Prisoners who work during the day will be able to take part in education in the evenings.

According to the Prison Education Trust digital technology “remains the essential ingredient that would revolutionise prison education”. And prisoners need to be supported and encouraged if they are going to achieve their full educational potential.

Jonathan Glazzard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.