Learning Programs or Educational Curricula for Prisons in the Twenty-First Century?

Abstract

This chapter states that there exists a difference between a learning program and an educational curriculum. Beneficiary-learners participate in the development, implementation and evaluation of learning programs whereas educational curricula are offered by some authorities who hardly consult with potential learners and who oversee the fashioning, execution and evaluation of the programs they have developed. The chapter draws attention to the fact that with regards to education in prison, the world is currently divided into three camps (nations that believe in the provision of a full range of educational services to prisoners, those that hold the view that only a limited provision of educational services is needed and nations that think prisoners deserve no education). The chapter ends by supplying a rationale for the provision of learning programs to the prisoner and the psycho-social and temporal sources from where the building blocks for such learning programs should be derived.