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Exploring the history of prisoner education
Exploring the history of prisoner education

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

Exploring the history of prisoner education

Introduction and guidance

As a society we need to understand how we got to where we are. This free course, Exploring the history of prisoner education, has been developed for learners who are in prison, who work in prisons, who visit prisons and who are interested in the history of prisons and prison education. This course has 8 sessions, each with approximately 3 hours of studying to be done at your own pace. The eight sessions are linked to ensure a logical flow through the course. They are:

  1. The origins of prison education
  2. The rise of the prison school
  3. Inside the prison school
  4. Education outside the prison school
  5. Systems of measurement
  6. Education in a changing penal regime
  7. Uniformity in prisons and prison education
  8. A new era for prison education?

Each session should take you around 3 hours. There are a number of activities throughout the course where you are asked to note down your response. A text box is provided for you to do this, however if you would prefer to record your answers in another way that is fine.

At the end of each session there is also a quiz to help you check your understanding. And, if you want to receive a badge and statement of participation, at the end of Sessions 4 and 8 there is a quiz which you need to pass.

After completing this course, you should be able to:

  • understand the history of prison education in the British Isles
  • recognise that especially literacy and numeracy programmes have been offered to prisoners in a range of contexts and for a variety of purposes
  • understand the variety of ways in which prisoners responded to schemes for their educational improvement and rehabilitation
  • understand some of the ways in which the study of the past can aid policymaking and practice in the present.

Moving around the course

In the ‘Summary’ at the end of each session, you will find a link to the next session. If at any time you want to return to the start of the course, click on ‘Full course description’. From here you can navigate to any part of the course.

It’s also good practice, if you access a link from within a course page (including links to the quizzes), to open it in a new window or tab. That way you can easily return to where you’ve come from without having to use the back button on your browser.

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.