• How can informal job shadowing in other European countries help to improve education in prison – and the support services for ex-prisoners post-release?
• How can the new digital technologies be harnessed to enhance learning opportunities for prisoners without jeopardising security, also for people serving a sentence in a country other than their own? 
• How can comparing and sharing cooking techniques in different countries contribute to motivating prisoners for successful reintegration in society?
• How can autobiographical writing or participating in theatre productions help prisoners to take stock of their lives and give them a new sense of creativity and self-esteem?

As these examples show, Erasmus+ (Adult Education) projects address a wide range of issues relating to adult learning in the prison context. Yet all, in their specific way, are helping to find an answer to the key question: What can adult learning in the context of the justice system do – whether by improving the learning opportunities in prison itself or by enhancing related services prior to or following release – to help to ensure that at the end of their sentence prisoners have all the life skills (cognitive, social and personal) and the support they will need to make a fresh start in the increasingly challenging world outside?

Sitting at the intersection between education, social policy and justice, Prison Education can sometimes find it difficult to make its voice sufficiently heard in all of these policy sectors – at European just as at national level. However, building on the pioneering work carried out under previous EU initiatives such as “Grundtvig” in the framework of Socrates (1995-2006) and the Lifelong Learning Programme (2007-2013), as well as the “EQUAL” Community Initiative under the European Social Fund, Erasmus+ (Adult Education) has now established itself as a focal point for the development of innovative approaches to Prison Education, based on cooperation and mobility across the participating countries.

How many projects have been supported and which countries have been most active?

218 projects relating to education in the context of prisons have been supported by Erasmus+ (Adult Education) in its first ten years (2014-2023) – just under 2% of all Adult Education projects.[1] Of these, 115 were “KA1” Mobility Projects and 103 “KA2” Cooperation Partnerships between organisations[2].

During this time, 28 of the 34 programme countries have coordinated a Prison Education project and 33 have been involved in projects either as project coordinator or partner.[3] More than half the countries coordinated projects under both KA1 and KA2, with certain countries (Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Malta, Norway, Turkey) tending to opt more for Mobility Projects and others (notably the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Rumania) more for the Cooperation Partnerships. Spain and Italy were the most active coordinating countries (32 projects each), followed by France and Turkey (18), Rumania (12), Germany (11) and Norway (10). Italy “topped the polls” in terms of its overall involvement in projects (KA1 and KA2), i.e. either as coordinator or non-coordinating participant: organisations from this country were involved in 65 (29.8%) and those from Spain in 63 (28.9%) of all projects, followed by Portugal and Rumania (44 projects each), Turkey (36), France, Greece and the Netherlands.

To obtain a clearer impression of the relative importance attached to Prison Education within the entire spectrum of Adult Education, it is instructive to look at the number of Prison Education projects coordinated in each country compared with its total number of Adult Education projects selected for support. Against this criterion, Malta emerges as the country attaching highest importance to Prison Education (5% of the Adult Education total), followed by Norway (4.9%), Ireland, Serbia, the Netherlands and Turkey. In 20 of the 34 programme countries the share of Prison Education was under 2%.

The figures also reveal a surprisingly low involvement of certain countries with strong Prison Education systems, notably in the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Finland and Sweden (in sharp contrast to the leading role played by Norway). Every effort should be made, in active partnership with the relevant education and justice authorities, to encourage stronger participation of these countries in the remaining years of Erasmus+, in the interest of further developing the programme´s potential for stimulating innovation and improving the quality of Prison Education across Europe.

How much do the projects cost?

The following table (in €) shows the overall funding provided for Prison Education projects in the framework of the Adult Education section of Erasmus+ 2014-2023:

As the table shows, KA2 projects received almost 8 times more funding in total than those under KA1, even though the number of projects was significantly lower. KA2 projects cost on average well over 8 times as much as those funded under KA1, and each year of project funding cost over 6 times more. Taking a closer look, 30% of all KA1 projects received a total grant of under €10,000 and 76% under €30,000, with only 7% receiving grants of over €50,000. By contrast, half the KA2 projects received grants in excess of €200,000. Both in KA1 and in KA2, the size of project grants varied widely, within KA2 by a factor of >16, in KA1 by a factor of >113 between lowest and highest grant.

What types of organisation have taken the lead? 

In overall terms, over 60% of the Prison Education projects in the first decade of Erasmus+ (Adult Education) have been coordinated by either NGO´s or Adult Education Centres (31% each). NGO´s predominate strongly as coordinators of Cooperation Partnerships (44% of all KA2), Adult Education Centres in the Mobility Projects (46% of all KA1). Adult Education Centres coordinate almost 4 times more Mobility Projects (53) than Cooperation Partnerships (14).

Other significant coordinators are Prisons (8 KA1, 3 KA2), National/Regional prison services or their support agencies (12 KA1, 5 KA2) and Higher Education institutions (15 KA2).

What are some of the main project features and topics addressed?

Most KA1 projects are designed to span a 2-year duration (58%, but 65% in phase 2 of Erasmus+ from 2021 on) and envisage mobility for 10 participants or fewer. Less formal training formats (especially Job-shadowing / study visits) predominate (mentioned by 92% in the project funding application) over structured (sometimes customised) courses (53%), whereas only a very few training placements and scarcely any teaching assignments are envisaged. Short-duration stays of up to one week are strongly prevalent. Some projects foresee mobile groups (sometimes involving various staff roles), while others favour mobility of individuals. Many projects target Prison Education staff in general, whereas in others the focus is on staff working with specific groups of prisoners (foreign nationals, juveniles, women etc.). Some projects foresee the involvement of ex-prisoners in mobility. In several cases the focus is on staff not directly involved in education. Interestingly, mention is sometimes made of town-twinning arrangements as the framework for projects – an aspect which could be further developed in the future.

Regarding the issues addressed, KA1 projects relating to the professional development of Prison teachers, most notably in areas such as basic skills/literacy, host country language teaching, IT and the use of various art forms in prison, are most frequent. Other projects concern staff development in contexts other than pedagogy, such as staff training to help prisoners tackle health problems, improvement of post-release and social service strategies, inter-agency collaboration, victim support or the sensitisation of society at large to issues concerning prisons and prisoner rehabilitation.

KA2 projects involve between 2 and 8 countries, with just over half in the favoured middle range of 4-5 countries and the other half roughly equally divided between smaller projects (2-3 countries) and large partnerships involving 6-8 countries. As with KA1, 2-year projects are in the majority (53%) but 3-year projects are also popular (44%). Some of the 2-year projects eventually take closer to 3 years to complete. The primary target group are prison educators / teachers / learning facilitators, but many projects address other prison staff such as prison officers, psychologists, social workers, probation officers/workers, volunteers, health workers, staff in national prison services / training centres etc.. 

A number iof general thematic characteristics can be discerned. Firstly, while some projects do relate to “classical” classroom situations, probably more are concerned with various formats for non-formal/informal learning and in many, there is a strong emphasis on ‘personal’ attributes / behaviour, boosting motivation and self-esteem, developing ’soft’ skills and social competence rather than cognitive aspects of learning. Many projects address Prison Education in general rather than specific disciplines, and in several of them, Prison Education is not the exclusive focus but rather one of several, the projects concerned seeking to address various aspects of social marginalisation. In several cases, Prison Education is often seen not in isolation in the projects, but rather in conjunction with other aspects of the prison régime conducive to making the prison a more positive learning environment. Several projects focus on issues relating not directly to improving learning opportunities for inmates, but rather on strengthening links with the outside community (probation, employers, inter-agency cooperation, awareness-raising in society about ex-prisoners, promoting the work of volunteer organisations), or on human rights and anti-discrimination issues, or on developing restorative justice methods.

Nonetheless, a majority of KA2 projects do have a focus on improving aspects of the learning opportunities in prison, whether for prisoners in general or for specific groups such as female prisoners, juvenile prisoners, foreign prisoners, remand prisoners, older prisoners, prisoners nearing the time of release, or prisoners with special needs. Specific topics include:

Learning topics

• Basic skills / literacy

• Personal and social skills
• Arts and creativity (mainly theatre; also music, dance, video-production)
• IT (digital competence, developing computer games etc.)
• VET and employment-related reintegration of prisoners
• Active citizenship
• Language (host country language - L2) and inter-cultural competence
• Sport
• Health-related issues (addiction, mental health, stress, aggression…)
• Anti-radicalisation, human rights, anti-discrimination
• Family and parental issues
• Autobiography
• Ageing problems
• Cooking
• Environmental awareness, sustainable lifestyle post-release

System-related topics

• Prison education in general
• Staff development (education and other staff)
• Counselling and guidance provision
• IT (development of e-platforms)
• Methods for validating non-formal/informal learning
• Role of the prison library
• Developing restorative justice methods
• Raising awareness of prison and reintegration issues in the general community

Finally, it must be noted that a significant number of projects under both KA1 and KA2 have addressed issues which stretch the limit of “Adult Education” in the Erasmus+ sense of the term, focussing for example on vocationally oriented training for prisoners, employment-related aspects of reintegration in society or the continuing training of prison officers – issues which might in some cases more legitimately have been supported in the Vocational Training part of the programme.

What results and outputs are planned?

The basis for the present study is the profile of projects at the time of initial selection for support by Erasmus+ and their intentions with regard to the outputs to be developed and results to be achieved.  In the case of Mobility Projects under KA1, these centre on the improved professional competence of the staff targeted by the projects concerned, this being defined as the aim and purpose of this funding line. While projects of this kind generally focus on the further professional development of in-service staff, there are also examples of creative approaches such as training inmates to become mentors / peer trainers during their sentence or subsequently. A number of projects state their intention of going beyond a purely local or domestic impact by generating ancillary products such as good practice reports resulting from study visits and disseminating these via various means at regional or national level. In a few instances, some really ambitious results are envisaged such as developing a new plan for Prison Education in the Netherlands and a new curriculum and certification system for Prison Education in Norway.

As noted above, projects funded pursuant to the KA2 line for Cooperation Partnerships vary considerably with regard to their level of ambition, some smaller scale projects being more process-related and oriented towards promoting cooperation between local institutions while others envisage more complex and tangible outputs, including: 

What does the analysis tell us for the future?

So what are the overall messages which emerge from this analysis? First, with well over 200 new projects in the first 10 years of Erasmus+, it is encouraging to see that the Adult Education part of the programme has continued to engage the interest of the Prison Education community in seeking new avenues for mobility and cooperation in Europe. But equally, there is still room for improvement, also in sheer quantitative terms. Thus the percentage share of Prison Education projects relative to those in Adult Education as a whole has fallen by more than half under Erasmus+ compared with the preceding Lifelong Learning Programme. Furthermore, many KA1 and KA2 projects relate to other aspects of education and training in the justice context, rather than to improving learning opportunities for inmates in the strict sense of the term “Prison Education”.

Second, as the old saying goes, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”. As indicated above, the present analysis is based on the data relating to projects at the tiime of their selection for support. A comprehensive analysis of the projects supported should be undertaken to assess the material impact which they have had (or are capable of having given the necessary dissemination and exploitation measures) on innovation and the improvement of the quality of Prison Education in Europe and on the level of European cooperation in the field. 

Third, our analysis reveals a broad variety of projects in terms of their size and funding, their geographical distribution, their complexity of design and level of ambition, the target groups addressed, the types of output envisaged and the aspects of Prison Education on which they focus. The message to the Prison Education community is clear: there is room in the Erasmus+ programme for projects of all kinds, and smaller organisations with limited infrastructure and only local outreach should be no more reticent about getting involved than more powerful bodies seeking to implement more complex and large-scale reform models in the field – all the more so in the light of the now less complex administrative procedures relating to smaller scale projects. In Erasmus+, there is truly something for everyone involved with Prison Education!

Furthermore, National Agencies for Erasmus+ seem eager to increase the involvement of Prison Education. This is reflected in the various “Contact Seminars”, “Online Speed-dating events” etc. organised in recent years (a further such event is scheduled in Germany in May 2025). 

Finally, as we take stock of the first decade of Erasmus+, it is worth reflecting on the kind of “Prison Education” which progressive players are trying to achieve – and to which European cooperation and mobility can make such a valuable contribution. With this in mind, the author has attempted to pull out 20 “Key Messages” resulting from the Erasmus+ projects and more generally the EU´s involvement with Prison Education. These are contained in the Annex to the present document. 

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