On the 13th of October 1989, the Council of Europe adopted a set of recommendations outlining the needs and responsibilities concerning the education of imprisoned persons in Europe. You can download these recommendations in full here.

These recommendations stipulate that all imprisoned persons should be offered the opportunity to engage in educational activities and that these activities should serve to develop the whole person, be conducive to effective reintegration, and encourage a reduction in recidivism.

These recommendations form the basis of the objectives of the European Prison Education Association, and have been ratified in the educational policies of a number of European countries, still we have a long way to go to ensure that the recommendations are sufficiently implemented across Europe and internationally.

25 Years Later

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of these recommendations, the European Prison Education Association would like to invite you to support us in establishing an International Day of Education in Prison, to be observed annually on the 13th of October. 

This day will be important in helping to maintain an international awareness of the issues concerning prison education in an ever-changing world.  We hope this day will serve to encourage activities and events within prisons, raising awareness of – and celebrating the successes of – educational work in prisons, but also to keep prison education an important issue amongst policy makers, ombudsmen and other critical stakeholders.

This day will not only result in practical activities, promoting grass-roots participation by prisoners and educational professionals, but also foster symbolic support from major international organisations, furthering highlighting the importance of prison education at an international policy-making level.

In acknowledgement of your support for establishing an International Day of Education in Prison we would like to ask for you to organise events and raise awareness, showing solidarity and strengthening our collective vision. Please email details on the events that you organise to us that we can share these events with our members and spread our ideas.

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of these recommendations, the European Prison Education Association would like to invite you to support us in establishing an International Day of Education in Prison, to be observed annually on the 13th of October. 

As from 2016 EPEA will acknowledge an award to the person/ organisation/ institution that has done a remarkable effort to promote IDEP (the International day of Education in Prison) which is celebrated as you will know on the 13th October. The winner is announced on the 13th November each year.

The award consists of free participation of our biennial International Conference for one person representing the winning organisation and of course publicity on our EPEA website. Winners will be invited for the first EPEA-Conference after the year they participated in the IDEP Award. Click here to find the application form and further details.