The news that A4e is terminating its contract to deliver education at 12 London prisons because it cannot make a profit (Report, 13 August) will hit those teaching in the sector hard. In our report Prison Educators: Professionalism Against the Odds, written with the University and College Union, we discovered that the small group of teachers in prisons are older than the average for further education, better qualified but less well paid, with fewer holidays. They are positive about the benefits of education in prison, highly motivated and enthusiastic.
But the view given by those teachers is that prison education is no longer a viable career and is losing its potential to play a positive part in the rehabilitative process. Teachers’ most frequent complaint is about the pressures of constant retendering. As one put it: “Changing employer every three years is not beneficial to a department. It can take up to two years to get properly acquainted and set up smoothly with a new employer. Changing so often is unsettling for staff and does not allow continuity of systems for learners.” Quite possibly this respondent will soon have another employer to notch up.
Education in prisons remains one of the few ways available to change a prisoner’s life trajectory. Yet the process of outsourcing, with its cycle of retendering, budget cuts and ever-greater exhortations to “efficiency”, has led to a regime where prisoners spend ever-greater amounts of time in their cells doing nothing that will help move them on.
Short-contract outsourcing of education for the prison sector has failed to deliver a service that prisoners, prison educators and the public have a right to expect. Prison education is dying a death by a thousand cuts. The prison population is just under 85,000; we send a greater proportion of our population to prison than any other country in Europe and they spend longer incarcerated than in other European countries. Rehabilitation must be the overriding aim of the service, not simply the narrow focus on job skills.
Prof Jane Hurry, Prof Greg Brooks, Margaret Simonot, Anita Wilson, Brian Creese
Centre for education in the criminal justice system, Institute of Education
