A new report from the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP), suggests that the standard of education that children receive whilst imprisoned in young offender institutions (YOIs) is declining sharply. The review revealed that many students had only 30 minutes out of their cells per day due to the inability of many YOIs to cope with the complex behavioural issues of some students, and a need to keep students apart. The report called for better teacher recruitment and more time out of cells for students to learn.
Sir Martyn Oliver, the chief inspector of Ofsted, said that he found the provision made for some students in YOIs “shockingly bad” during inspections and noted that, in some cases, inspectors required counselling after visiting. While none of the institutions in the review scored above “requires improvement” in their last inspection, the report also suggested that staff shortages were impacting the ability to deliver the necessary education.
A student who served time in a YOI, Lorenzo Alara, feels that many prisoners are just preoccupied with survival and avoiding seeming nerdy to their peers. However, he suggested that a more skills-based, interactive, or incentivised approach could improve engagement and adoption of education. There were suggestions that leadership issues and poor cooperation with education providers had been contributing factors to the decline in provision.
Youth justice minister Nic Dakin, highlighted that the current government had inherited a system “in crisis” but was “working towards a clear strategy for youth custody reform”. A review into the youth justice system conducted in 2016 recommended introducing new “secure school” facilities to prioritise “rigorous education and training”. Earlier this year, the first such school, Oasis Restore, opened in Kent and founder, the Reverend Steve Chalke, reported that the focus was on “helping them to return to society” rather than punishment, with vocational classes, small class sizes and even one-to-one learning available
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