Improving the literacy and numeracy of young people in custody and in the community

This is the final report from the research project ‘Improving the literacy and numeracy of young offenders and disaffected young people’ carried out by the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC) from 2002-05. It presents findings from two strands of the project: classroom observations and experimental interventions. The report looks at the kind of literacy and numeracy provision on offer to young people in the youth justice system and how students respond to it. It also looks at the impact of either increasing discrete literacy and numeracy provision or contextualising it. Many of the young people we observed were not enthusiastic about taking courses in literacy and numeracy, being more focused on entering the world of work. An obvious solution to this lack of enthusiasm would therefore be to embed literacy and numeracy within vocational contexts. However, there is currently a need for some discrete basic skills provision, especially in custodial contexts where vocational facilities are limited or non-existent. More work now needs to be done to align provision with young people’s interests and aspirations. Young people attending education or training do make useful gains in literacy and numeracy.

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