TEACHING in jails will be “de-skilled” after a new deal was signed to scrap dozens of lecturers from the prison system.
Under a new contract awarded to Fife College, most teaching staff will require no more than an HNC to deliver education behind bars, meaning prisoners may no longer be able to achieve highers and similar qualifications.
The education union the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) said the proposals would damage education in prisons and remove an important tool for rehabilitating inmates. Meanwhile staff fear terms and conditions will be eroded.
Until now Fife College and New College, Lanarkshire, have jointly provided education across Scotland's 15 prisons. But from August, Fife College will take over responsibility for the whole service, having won an SPS tender.
However the EIS fears it will lead to redundancies and undermine the ability of staff to help prisoners go straight.
EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said: "This is a distressing time for all staff affected by these proposals. Staff want to know that their jobs are secure and that they can continue to deliver a high-quality education to their students in prisons."
There are currently 33 lecturers employed by New College Lanarkshire to deliver education in prisons. There are none in the new proposed Fife College structure, and job specifications issued by Fife College show that only one team leader in each prison will be required to have a teaching qualification.
The EIS said prison lecturers at New College Lanarkshire had not had any guarantees that their positions would be secure or that their rights would be safeguarded under TUPE legislation following transfer to Fife College.
Mr Flanagan claimed FE lecturers played a vital role in educating and rehabilitating prisoners of prisoners – but this may now be under threat by new proposals. "The right to education is a fundamental human right and is important in the rehabilitation of prisoners," he said.
"If these proposals are implemented, we could see prison education being de-skilled with the role of lecturers being removed. This can only damage the quality of educational standards in Scottish prisons.”
A spokesman for the SPS said the contract had been won by Fife College and it was now up to them to deliver on their commitments under the contract.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel