The United Nations, Unesco and prisoner education

UNESCO Courier, June, 1998

The UN has adopted several sets of prisoner education standards. The most important, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1955), stipulates that "provision shall be made for the further education of all prisoners capable of profiting thereby", and that penal education should be integrated "so far as practicable" with each country's educational system.

Another set of principles, the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (The Beijing Rules) establishes standards on the rights of juvenile offenders. Rule 26 stipulates that a juvenile penal education system should help young people in institutions "to assume socially constructive and productive roles in society". The focus is on the "wholesome development" of young offenders and on training to ensure that they do not return to society at an "educational disadvantage".

Significant new UN resolutions on prison education were adopted in 1990, including a recommendation that "all prisoners have access to education, including literacy programmes, basic education, vocational training, creative, religious and cultural activities, physical education and sports, social education, higher education and library facilities".

While UNESCO had previously said little on the specific subject of prisoner education at the international level, the Fourth International UNESCO Conference on Adult Education (1985) adopted a declaration on the right to learn for all, which consists of: a) the right to read and write; b) the right to question and analyse; c) the right to imagine and create; d) the right to read about one's own world and to write history; e) the right to have access to educational resources; f) the right to develop individual and collective skills. Like the human rights articulated by the UN, these UNESCO rights are considered fundamental, with the goal of developing the whole personality. This means that prisoners should be given access wherever possible to libraries, laboratories, workshops, cultural events and similar educational resources to develop themselves to the fullest extent.

The Fifth International Conference on Adult Education, organized by the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg, 14-18 July 1997, adopted the Hamburg Declaration on Adult Learning and its accompanying Agenda for the Future which sets out in detail UNESCO's new commitment to adult learning. The Agenda recognizes "the right to learn of all prison inmates: a) By providing prison inmates with information on and access to different levels of education and training; (b) By developing and implementing comprehensive education programmes in prisons, with the participation of inmates, to meet their needs and learning aspirations; (c) By making it easier for non-governmental organizations, teachers and other providers of educational activities to work in prisons, thereby providing prisoners with access to educational institutions and encouraging initiatives that link courses carried out inside and outside prisons."

For further Information on the 1997 conference:

Internet: http://www.education.unesco.org/confintea

Bibliography:

Further reading in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works:

* The Lava of this Land, South African Poetry 1960-1996, Denis Hirson (ed.), 1997

* The Prisoner, Fakhar Zaman, 1996

* Journal de la felicite, Nicolae Steinhardt, 1995

* South African Short Stories, D. Hirson with M. Trump (eds.), 1994

* Post-scriptum et autres nouvelles, Vassili Choukchine, 1997

From the UNESCO Courier:

* 'The education of prisoners", Stephen Duguid, April 1996 (Learning to Learn)

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Tel: (33)(0)1 45 68 43 00; Fax: (33)(0)1 4568 57 41; Internet: http://www.unesco.org/publications