THIRD SECTOR
The Prisoners’ Education Trust was unable to put educational staff into prisons during the lockdown
education system; and help them with challenges that might distract them from education, such as problems with health, housing or poverty.” As an example, RSN has worked with a young man from Afghanistan since he was 15, finding him a mentor to support his maths and English studies, helping him progress through FE, then to apply for university and scholarship support. He is The crisis has also created now completing a degree in problems for much larger third computing and is working sector organisations working in with RSN to support other FE. The Workers Educational young refugees. Association (WEA), founded in The proportion RSN delivered many 1903, delivers courses throughout of charities of its services using England and Scotland. A sister and voluntary digital technology during organisation, Adult Learning organisations in lockdown, but some Wales, does so in Wales. Most WEA education that are students found it difficult learners live less than three miles classed as ‘micro’ accessing those services. from their nearest venue. Norman cites the case of The Covid-19 crisis has created a young man who was trying to complete unprecedented challenges, beginning with a Level 2 BTEC in plumbing and heating the suspension of all face-to-face learning engineering, alongside GCSEs in maths on 23 March. “At that point our online and English. “He needed to produce offer wasn’t as strong as it could be, but we enough work for his teachers to be able moved hundreds of courses online,” says to assess it but for most of lockdown he WEA general secretary and CEO Simon was working on a mobile phone,” she Parkinson. “It was an incredible challenge. explains. She praises schools and We did it by investing charitable reserves colleges that proactively tried to find in equipment and training.” out which students did not have access Another much smaller, much younger to technology and find ways to supply organisation, the Refugee Support them with laptops and Network (RSN), was launched as a local internet access. project by members of Community Church Harlesden in north London in 2009. It now supports about 500 young On the inside refugees and asylum seekers each year, Charities also make including unaccompanied children, in invaluable contributions locations across the country. to education inside “All our work is aimed at helping to the UK’s prisons. The address barriers to education for these Prisoners’ Education young people,” says Bryony Norman, head Trust (PET) has of specialist education and wellbeing supported more support at RSN. “Our trained staff than 40,000 learners members help them to navigate a complex in prisons since its
53%
foundation in 1989. It funds distance learning courses in every prison in England and Wales, reaching more than 1,600 prisoners this way in 2019. It is funded by charitable trusts and foundations, individual donors and an annual Ministry of Justice grant. “Prison education usually focuses on literacy, numeracy and basic ICT, but we can fund many more courses, from GCSEs through to A Levels and degrees through the Open University; along with vocational courses, like bookkeeping, health and safety or horticulture,” says PET CEO Rod Clark. “We can help people with creative studies too.” Although it was possible to deliver distance learning during lockdown, the crisis made it harder for prisoners to apply for PET-supported courses, as educational staff in prisons usually help with this process and they were not present in prisons. This led to a 25 per cent reduction in applications to PET courses. In April, with the assistance of a targeted fundraising campaign, the charity launched a freephone advice line for learners in prison. By early July it had taken more than 300 calls from 150 learners in 60 prisons and from prisoners’ family members.
Future funding There is an appreciation of the contribution these organisations make to FE within the education sector – in 2019 AELP launched a Third Sector Special Interest Group, with the aim of giving them a more powerful voice, while raising awareness of the value of their work. But Parkinson is concerned about the prospects for organisations effectively operating in two sectors that are both in desperate need of secure long-term funding; and against a backdrop of economic turmoil: “We are in for a hard economic recovery; and I have concerns about the longer term funding of communitybased learning, when the pressure really comes on the public purse.”
THIRD SECTOR ORGANISATIONS PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE IN DELIVERING EDUCATION FOR SOME OF THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST
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