By The Ministry of Justice
Prison education plays a key role in the purposeful activity provided in prison. It helps to prepare people for work on release and evidence shows that prisoners who take any form of learning activity have a significantly lower reoffending rate on release from prison than their peers. This report looks at the participation and achievement in core prison education programmes of two populations of prison leavers in England.
The statistics have been produced to build evidence on who is engaging in prison education, in what ways, and how this relates to their educational background and other characteristics. Understanding who is participating in prison education is crucial to building an evidence base which can better support the provision of prison education shaped towards the needs of prisoners. Doing this ensures that budgets are used to their best effect, maximising value for money.
The main data source is the prison education management information system, CURIOUS, which has been linked to information from other administrative sources including probation services, the Offender Assessment System (OASys) and the MOJ-Department for Education (DfE) data share.
This work has been completed by the Ministry of Justice: Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD).
1.2 Methodology
This report examines the demographics, criminogenic and educational needs, as well as the educational background of participation and achievement in accredited prison education courses, for two offender cohorts:
Cohort 1: Adult offenders released from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2024, after serving sentences of at least 3 months in public prisons in England.
Cohort 2: Adult offenders aged 18 to 35 who were released from June 2019 to December 2020, after serving sentences in public prisons in England, and for whom DfE data has been linked to provide information on education experiences while in school.
1.3 Headline findings
Cohort 1:
Of 16,810 adult offenders released from custody in 2024, having completed sentences of at least 3 months, over half (65%) had participated in at least one accredited education course whilst in prison. 56% of prison leavers successfully achieved at least one qualification.
Levels of participation in prison education courses were higher for female (74%) than male prison leavers (65%) (although only 5% of prison leavers included were women).
Of those with at least one criminogenic need recorded, 65% participated in education courses compared to 72% of those with no needs identified.
The lowest participation in education courses is seen for those with an alcohol misuse need (62% of prison leavers); in contrast, the highest level of participation was observed for those with a drug misuse need (66%), as well as those with an employment need (66%).
55% of prison leavers recorded on OASys assessments as having significant difficulties in reading, writing or numeracy in education courses participated in education courses, compared with 66% of those recorded as having no difficulties in these areas.
Upon release from custody, half (50%) of prison leavers who reported no prior qualifications had passed an accredited course: 18% of prison leavers had successfully achieved a functional skills qualification in English, 17% had achieved a functional skills qualification in maths and 36% had achieved a vocational qualification.
When considering offenders leaving prison after serving less than 3 months in custody as a comparison, only 16% achieved any accredited course, less than half the rate or those serving 3 to 6 months (35%) and compared to almost three quarters (73%) of those leaving prison after 2 or more years.
Cohort 2:
9% of prison leavers matched to NPD records at the end of key stage 4 (year 11) had achieved 5 or more GCSEs or equivalent qualifications at grades A*-C (or 9-4 in newer qualifications) and 2% had achieved 2 or more A levels when aged 16 to 18. In contrast, 18% had not achieved any passes at key stage 4.
Six in ten (60%) of those who had not achieved 5 or more A*-C GCSEs or equivalent qualifications participated in an accredited education course while in prison, higher than the participation rate for those holding these prior qualifications (53%).
Four in ten (42%) of prison leavers with no passes at key stage 4 left prison with a pass in at least one accredited qualification. The most common level to achieve in functional skills English and maths were entry level qualifications.[footnote 1]
A large majority (78%) of prison leavers matched to NPD records had special educational needs (SEN) identified while attending school. A higher proportion of prison leavers who had SEN recorded while in school participated in functional skills maths and English courses in prison (18% and 19% respectively) than those with no recorded needs (14% and 15% respectively).
Six in ten (62%) of prison leavers who were ever severely absent from school (for more than 50% of sessions in a year) participated in education in prison and 43% of those severely absent from school achieved at least one course.
43% of prison leavers who had been permanently excluded from school achieved at least one course in prison.
Nearly 6 in 10 (59%) were ever eligible for free school meals (FSM) in the years captured in the data (meaning their household received certain qualifying out-of-work benefits) and over 9 in 10 (93%) had lived in the most deprived 20% of areas based on the proportion of families claiming low-income related benefits (Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, IDACI).
This report presents descriptive statistics only. It looks at patterns of participation in prison education across different groups and settings, without making causal claims or conducting inferential statistical testing.
London: Ministry of Justice, 2025. 21p.
