Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many adult prisoners were undertaking level (a) 2 and (b) 3 courses in each academic year since September 2015.

Until 2018-19, education provision in prisons was the responsibility of the Department for Education. Figures for subsequent years, with the exception of 2020-21, are shown in the table below.

During much of the Covid pandemic in 2020-21, prison regimes were restricted, and education delivered remotely. As collection of data was suspended for a period, figures for 2020-21 are not available. The return to classroom learning in 2021-22 enabled data collection to resume, but the effect of the regime restrictions can be seen in the statistics for that year. As of 9 May 2022, all Covid-19 related regime restrictions were removed.

Note: Data sourced from the CURIOUS data collection system.