Case Study
The Clink Charity: Transforming Prison Education with GENAIE
THE CHALLENGE
Foreign nationals in His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service seeking vocational training, such as catering, encounter challenges due to language barriers. While the people in prisons quickly grasp the material in their native languages, it is crucial for them to learn it in English to thrive in a professional setting and attain the NVQ 1.
To access training programs provided by The Clink Charity, individuals must demonstrate proficiency in English. Although existing education programs, like ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), focus on general English learning, they do not effectively integrate vocational training and context-specific language instructions. This gap impedes their ability to engage with the training content and acquire necessary skills and qualifications.
GENAIE TO GENERATE PROFESSIONAL COURSES
The Clink Charity partnered with Meganexus to create an online catering course consisting of nine modules available in four different languages: Romanian, Polish, Albanian, and English. The course is based on the curriculum for the NVQ Level 1 exam in Hospitality and Catering.
Using GENAIE, the Meganexus team reduced the course development time by over 96% compared to traditional eLearning course creation methods. Additionally, GENAIE was able to translate the course content more accurately than human translators and in a fraction of a time it would have taken, achieving an accuracy rate of 94%, making the course accessible to a diverse group of learners.
“I studied catering course and learned the UK rules of the kitchen (law and legislation) in my native language. During this eight-week course, my cooking skills have improved, and I now know more catering words in English that I use while working in the prison canteen. The learnings from the course and my understanding of catering laws will help me in future as I plan to reopen a pub that I used to run before I came to prison.”
A Learner who has completed the catering course
THE IMPACT AND RESULTS
GENAIE supported the pilot phase by managing and adapting content for a small group of eight learners, facilitating the effective integration of native language instruction with English learning. The availability of course materials in the local language helped the learners better understand the content. Five individuals from the research cohort achieved City and Guild’s NVQ Level 1 certification in Hospitality and Catering.
The project also garnered interest from the Collaborative Action Research Network, which provided funding to publish. Ongoing research aims to refine the approach and assess its broader applicability. The success of the pilot lays a solid foundation for scaling up and optimising the integration of language learning with vocational training.