The key to education in prison handed to governors | Education

AAs two dogs enter and leave the kitchen, David Breakspear exposes the problems of British prisons: overcrowding, shortage of staff, mental health problems. Breakspear spent 15 years in prison. His last stint, he says, for holding a newsagent at arm's length was deliberate – he hoped that a few years behind bars could break a cycle of underperformance and homelessness.

Once sentenced, he spent his time taking clbades and developing an access module through the Open University. After his release in 2017, he became a curriculum and career dedicated to prison reform. Although Breakspear, 49, does not encourage deliberate crime, he now attributes his position to his time. He says: "Education must be the foundation of any reform of the penitentiary system. It must be the basis, because it is important.

The Ministry of Justice has attempted to adopt the idea that prisons should be focused on education. Last May, Justice Secretary David Gauke stated that the government's vision was to "put offenders on the job path as soon as they get to jail" and that "in the forensic from prison, everything starts with education ".

A central element of this vision is to transfer the responsibility for education in prisons in England to the various prison governors from 1 April. However, many who have direct experience of the system feel that the governor's autonomy will not help to increase the prisoners' chances of success.

The government's strategy is guided by a 2016 report by Dame Sally Coates, which draws three main conclusions. First, education in prison should improve the welfare of inmates and increase their employment prospects. Second, it would reduce recidivism and make communities safer. Finally, the current prison education system is inadequate for these purposes.

In a 2017-2018 report, Ofsted's inspectors found that less than half of the inmates were attending Level 2 courses (the equivalent of a GCSE of grades A * -C or 4-5). 9), and only 100 (of a prison population in England and Germany). Wales 82,236 in 2018) participated in a Level 3 course, equivalent to AS and above.

Future changes will put an end to the apprenticeship and job skills contracts for offenders who had been providing penitentiary education since 2006. The contracts were designed to replicate the goals of higher education in prison settings. According to Rod Clark of the Prisoners' Education Trust, they were not "adapted to the particular circumstances of a prison situation" because they were centralized without taking into account the needs of each prisoner.

The idea of ​​transferring education to governors is similar to the theory behind the conversion of schools to academies. Just as it was hoped that each school could tailor its education to its particular situation, it is thought that prison directors would understand as best as possible the needs of their prisoners as well as local employment opportunities.

The lobby, the Prison Reform Trust, estimates that 54% of incarcerated people possess the literacy skills expected of an average 11 year old child. In order to maintain consistent standards, a new prison education framework requires that the education of each inmate be badessed upon admission, and that persons below level 1 receive compulsory education in mathematics, in English. and ICT. offered by the four existing education providers – Novus, Milton Keynes College, PeoplePlus and Weston College.

The Prisoners 'Education Trust predicts that the core curriculum will absorb most of the governors' education budgets. Breakspear fears that if basic education is important, it does not realistically improve job prospects. He says, "If you are trying to get a job with a criminal record, you can not really have a level lower than 3."

However, individual governors will have more say in how the rest of their education budget is spent and may choose courses from a range of providers. Ideally, they would provide the skills sought by prisoners, potential employers or both.

However, prison overcrowding, the high turnover rate of staff and the frequency with which prisoners are confined to their cells because of the violence jeopardize even the most basic education services.

An experienced worker in the penitentiary system stated that prisons "do not physically have the capacity to educate properly at the moment. So it's either the first-come, first-served principle or the fact that the lucky ones have a chance. "

Mark Humphries, 51, is another former prisoner who started an open university course in jail for arson. He is about to begin work with Wayout TV, a program set up by the education provider PeoplePlus to broadcast educational content through televisions into cells.

He believes that separating the notions of computation and literacy from professional skills is counterproductive. "Most prisoners have negative experiences at school and do not want to sit in a clbadroom," he says. A better option, he believes, would be to integrate basic education into professional learning. "Put them in a road maintenance shop or retail shop that requires courses, so it's like learning stealthily while gaining a skill."

Another problem is the extent to which prisoners are moved between institutions. Between July and September, more than a quarter of the detainees were transferred and school records did not often move with them, so they had to start again. The new policy states that each inmate has a regularly updated and transferable individual learning plan, but the mechanisms put in place for this purpose are unclear.

Most of the prisoners, too, seem to ignore the opportunities available to them. Those who have succeeded in pursuing studies are those who feel able to go through layers of bureaucracy, such as applying for funding to pursue degree-level studies.

Ola Daniel, 52, who practiced the legal profession and was convicted of conspiracy after her clients were involved in mortgage fraud, attended several courses in prison but said she had to fight to do it. She fears that many prisoners do not believe that educational opportunities are understood.

This is where former learners in prison can pbad on their knowledge and experience. Marie-Claire O'Brien, 38, incarcerated for causing dangerous road deaths, created the New Leaf Initiative to provide workshops and rehabilitation support.

"For me, education is the only real form of social mobility," she says. She says that prisoners respond positively to the opportunities offered by ex-offenders, as they may be connected to them and that the education offered may be feasible. For governors, such initiatives could be an answer.