Online Teaching and Learning in Correctional Facilities: Opportunities and Tensions

Abstract

In a prison environment, inmates participating in online learning face numerous challenges. Access to education and digital materials must compete with security protocols that usually stifle innovative approaches to online learning. Education in prison environments is well-established, and studies attest to this notion. This article explores online learning in a correctional environment where inmates enrol with two distance education institutions, the Open University of the United Kingdom (OUUK) and the University of South Africa (UNISA). The study showcases the conditions, opportunities and tensions in online education in prison contexts in the nexus of providing access while ensuring security. The article further concedes that various countries are embarking on viable partnerships between correctional services, institutions of higher learning, non-governmental agencies, and other stakeholders. The two institutions, OUUK and UNISA, through well-guided Memoranda of Agreements (as argued in this article), have provided best practices and models that could be emulated to advance the agenda for the fourth industrial revolution in online learning. The qualitative documentary research that directed this article used a case study of the two open distance learning institutions, and it entailed a directed, inductive document analysis of national and institutional policies and Memoranda of Agreement (MoA). The research findings point to the continued impact of the tensions between access and security and strategies in ameliorating these tensions. Thus, with specific practices and multiple factors in each country, conditions and opportunities for online learning exist and are utilised to the best of each country’s abilities in offenders’ educational pursuits.