• Lifelong Learning and Prisoners: The benefits of wider learning and the wider benefits of learning.
A Conference organised by the Learning Matters project.
Printable conference headlines.
Over 130 delegates voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposition that lifelong learning for prisoners is as important as qualifications for jobs. Participants came together from across the UK and beyond, representing prison staff, NOMS, arts organisations and universities. There were contributions from ex-prisoners and Brother Niyi, poet, drummer and prison teacher performed at lunchtime.
Around 130 participants attended the Conference, which took place on 27th May, including around sixty prison education staff, academics, representatives of OLASS providers, HMPS and NOMS, accrediting bodies, research institutes and voluntary agencies working in this field.
The speakers included Tom Schuller, Director of the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning, Merron Mitchell, Senior Vice Principal for Offender Learning in Manchester College, the largest OLASS provider, and Angela Christopher from the NOMS Skills and Employment Team.
The theme
Learning whilst inside prison can have a significant impact on prisoners’ lives. Whether this means acquiring basic qualifications, learning to read or paint, or Open University study, the benefits can be enormous. Many prisoners discover that learning matters and that they have potential.
Whilst qualifications and employability clearly matter, many prisoners also gain motivation, skills and new perspectives from wider areas of learning. The role played by voluntary projects, higher education, arts projects and other activities is vital – not least because they help prisoners experience the value of lifelong learning. Prisoners benefit, and so does society.
The Conference discussed the importance of engaging prisoners in becoming lifelong learners. It explored ideas from two significant reports on crime and lifelong learning from the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning, such as the need to build prisoners’ human and social capital and the way in which learning gives prisoners a positive identity and a stake in society. Conference agenda presentation slides.
The keynote speech was delivered by Professor Tom Schuller. Director of the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning (IFLL) author of the IFLL Thematic Paper 5, "Crime and Lifelong Learning" and co-author of "Learning through life". Presentation slides.
Merron Mitchell OBE, Senior Vice Principal - Offender Learning, for The Manchester College, gave the response. Response presentation slides.
The debate groups focussed on issues arising from both informal and formal learning activities which have an impact on prisoners, both within and beyond the basic curriculum.
The plenary debate posed the question; does lifelong learning matter as much as qualifications for jobs? Following the debate, Peter Honey, Vice-Chair of the Prisoners Education Trust, asked for a show of hands on the question. There was an overwhelming vote that lifelong learning was as important as qualifications for jobs.
Delegates were then asked if lifelong learning is more important than qualifications for jobs and many again raised their hands. This is an interesting result, when compared with the reasons given by prisoners in the 2009 Brain Cells report, when asked why they got involved with learning. 73% of respondents said they wanted to occupy their time usefully, 69% wanted to better themselves, 60% were hoping to improve their employment prospects after release and 58% said they got involved to gain a qualification.
Headline messages
The following points emerged from the day’s discussion as headline messages. Printable version.
- There is a great deal of valuable work taking place in offender learning, through OLASS provision and HMPS provided qualifications, through access to OU study and distance learning and in a range of vital voluntary activities and projects. We found great relevance in the key idea from the Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning paper on crime: that learning can build the human capital (skills and qualifications), the identity capital (self-esteem) and the social capital (networks, relationships) of prisoners. All three contribute in vital ways to rehabilitation
- We recognise the constraining limits on public funding now and over the years ahead. The goal is to do much better with the resources which are there, to avoid needing resources for more prison places and to reduce the cost of crime. Paradoxically, the fiscal crisis is an opportunity to reverse the apparently inexorable rise in imprisonment.
- We need to maintain the progress made on skills and complement this with a broader approach to the prison curriculum. We affirmed the importance of valuing and developing soft skills, which are essential for employability in the light of turbulent labour markets. Soft skills can often provide turning points; they are not just ‘add-ons’. Arts activities, like HE, are highly relevant to employability.
- We agreed overwhelmingly that lifelong learning matters as much as qualifications for jobs. Many of us think it matters more. This reflects the approach to lifelong learning which has been powerfully articulated by John Hayes, the minister for FE, Skills and Lifelong Learning.
- We recognise and affirm strongly the public value case for ensuring offender learning in all possible forms remains a priority. In the long run, it produces savings and enables ex-prisoners to become participants in society and avoid further crime.
- We need to press harder to link learning to resettlement. This is essential if the value of the investment in in-prison education is to be realised. It means bringing together education and training, employment and housing services, with probation. This is in line with the maintenance of Total Place integrated local services, for which the Local Government minister Bob Neill has announced continued support. Post-release education is a key means of shifting the ex-offender’s peer group.
- We need more evidence of how education works at all levels. We need monitoring and evaluation which tracks ex-offenders over time, as a key tool for evaluating the effectiveness of different programmes.
- There is a need for stronger commitment to raising the skills of the entire workforce: all prison staff (not only those specifically in the education service); governors and prison monitoring board members, to give effective leadership; volunteers; and using the experience and talents of ex-prisoners, as tutors and mentors.
- We would like to see a whole prison approach to learning and wider availability of learning to all prisoners; the recent RSA report, The Learning Prison, sets out some of the challenges and possibilities.
- Pleas from conference participants; please hold onto current budgets; please don’t lose art classes; please value how activities as diverse as OU study, reading groups and Toe by Toe literacy teaching contribute not just to prisoners’ confidence and potential, but also impact positively on peer group culture in prisons and on family relationships. Please ensure that learners can progress beyond level two with OLASS support; in turn, we need to be optimistic and committed to partnership in the years ahead.
The ‘Lifelong Learning and Prisoners’ Conference was organized by the Learning Matters project, within the Prisoners Education Trust.
Headlines from the debate groups
Debate Group 1: What difference does reading make? The role of reading groups, literacy help and similar projects.
Led by Jenny Hartley and Sarah Turvey (Roehampton University, Prison Reading Groups), with David Ahern (Director, Shannon Trust).
- When a parent learns to read, so does a whole family.
- Learn to read for pleasure, not just for accreditations.
- Reading develops empathy.
Debate Group 2: The impact of higher education in prison: widening participation or a way to pass the time?
Led by Margaret Hart (Head of Widening Participation, Open University) and colleagues.
- Higher education (HE) in prison has an impact on human capital, identity capital and social capital:
- Human capital is particularly important for short-term prisoners; e-learning is important as a way to develop qualifications for this group.
- The learning environment, and the opportunity to continue learning through life, matter in developing identity capital.
- HE within the prison environment contributes to social capital; it gives prestige within peer groups, and has a positive impact on group culture, and encourages peer support.
- HE also makes a positive contribution to prisoner-family relationships; students are able to help children with schoolwork, it provides something to talk about during visits, and gives family members a positive role as they can assist with books (rather than drugs!).
Debate Group 3: The prisoners who don’t come to education: why? What don’t we know? What could we do?
Led by Anita Wilson, Prison Ethnographer, Lancaster University with Maria McNicholl, Senior Manager, St Giles Trust.
- Provide more support for peer tutors.
- Be pro-active in preventing offending, rather than reactive.
- Make prison education available to everyone.
- A whole prison approach: educate officers as well as tutors.
- Bureaucracy is an impediment.
- Don’t set people up to fail.
Debate Group 4: How do arts activities change prisoners’ lives?
Led by Tim Robertson (Director, Koestler Trust) with Andy Watson (Artistic Director, Geese Theatre Company). Koestler Trust presentation slides.
- We are all worried about cuts in education provision: many arts classes are being reduced.
- The arts are VITAL in employability work in prisons and not an added extra. They are integral; PSD units in the QCF can be achieved through creative arts programmes. It is sad but true that arts almost need to be disguised or dressed up as something else in order to survive in the ‘employability’ world. KPTs are not going away; government funding and traditional outcomes are based on this.
- Why are soft skills seen as ‘add-ons’ when they are quite often the turning points?
- The increase in class sizes and reduction in funding is a concern, especially for prisoners with learning difficulties for whom arts are particularly supportive.
- The arts create spaces for us to see each other differently.
- The arts provide the opportunity to affect others for good.
- For prisoners, the arts open doors into all aspects of life and unlock potential and ability to enter these; in relationships, self-confidence, education, training, creativity, employment etc.
- The arts build relationships and communities; on the wing and in prison as a whole; with families, through Family Day activities doing arts and crafts together; and with the outside community through theatre productions open to the public etc.
- The arts enable recognition of hidden skills and talents and enable healing.
Debate Group 5: "The learning prison"; a whole prison approach to learning.
Led by Rachel O’Brien, Author, ‘The Learning Prison’ RSA Report from the Prison Learning Network project. Presentation slides.
We need:
- Joint learning and engagement of prisoners and staff; IIP?
- Purposeful activity training for governors
- Staff training that is targeted and appropriate to the learning needs of each individual and meets the needs of the wider prison.
- Private prisons and HMPS prisons to work in tune, and avoid inconsistency across prisons.
- Expansion of peer mentoring within a broader strategy of greater user engagement.
