Home Secretary John Reid announced last month that floating prisons were going to solve the problem of overcrowding in jails across the country.

This plan means that hundreds of offenders and re-offenders could be crammed into boats to take pressure off land jails where there are simply no more cells available.

With 47 inmates having been shoe-horned into designated police cells in the past month and the UK prison population reaching an all-time high of 80,000, it is fair to say that Britain's jails are bursting at the seams with too many criminals.

However, instead of shipping inmates off to another alternative incarceration, Downview Prison is taking a different approach by trying to ensure that inmates do not re-offend after they have done their time.

The staff at the jail on the Sutton-Banstead border have started a new, innovative course which gives prisoners a real chance of employment after they have served their sentence.

In a partnership between the prison, London Metropolitan University and non-profit organisation Media for Development, students at Downview Prison can earn a Business and Technology Education Council certificate (BTEC), which is the equivalent to an A-level, in media studies.

When they have met all of the requirements of the four month course, students receive their qualification from London Metropolitan University through a certificate which does not reveal that they studied the subject while serving a custodial sentence.

However, this is not the only practical outcome of the course. As part of the syllabus, inmates learn how to use computer packages that are the industry standards to create radio and television programmes.

There is a studio in the prison which the students can learn production skills that they would need to get a job in any radio station or television set and graduates of the course have the chance to go and do work experience at Media for Development's production company The Inside Job.

At the end of the pilot run of the course last month 17 out of 19 inmates graduated and are now encouraging other prisoners to give it a try. The graduation ceremony was attended by Channel Four newsreader Samira Ahmed.

However, can education really prevent criminals from committing the same crimes when the gate doors of the prison are unlocked and they are back in the real world? Statistically, the answer is positive.

William Higham, head of policy at the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Those who do not take a course or learn a skill while they are in prison are three times more likely to be reconvicted.

"Programs like this are about trying to stop prisoners from re-offending and dealing with people who have deep-seated needs and issues. Many have the numeracy and literacy skills of an 11-year-old.

"There's no doubt doing courses like this can raise self-esteem too and give inmates confidence that they may have been lacking."