James Tooley

James Tooley
James Tooley at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London on 25 February 2015, after his talk entitled "50 years after EG West's 'Education and the State'."
Born	July 1959 (1959-07) (age 57) Southampton, England
Education	Kingsfield School University of Sussex University of London
Occupation	Educator, scholar

James Nicholas Tooley (born July 1959, in Southampton, England) is a professor of education policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, where he directs the E. G. West Centre. For his research on private education for the poor in India, China and Africa, Tooley was awarded the gold prize in the first International Finance Corporation/Financial Times Private Sector Development Competition in September 2006. From 2007 to 2009, he was founding President of the Education Fund, Orient Global, and lived in Hyderabad, India. He is currently chairman of education companies in Ghana (Omega Schools Franchise Ltd) and India (Empathy Learning Systems Pvt Ltd) creating low cost chains of low cost private schools. He also holds an appointment as an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute and serves on the Advisory Council of the Institute of Economic Affairs as well as on the Academic Advisory Council of Civitas: The Institute for the Study of Civil Society. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of Ralston College, a start-up liberal arts college in Savannah.

Tooley's family moved to Bristol where he was educated at Kingsfield School, Kingswood, under the tutelage of William Haxworth, and where he was also a contemporary of Richard Scudamore, presently Chief Executive of the Premier League. In fact they both appeared in the 1977 School production of Joe Orton's The Erpingham Camp.

Tooley holds a PhD from the Institute of Education, University of London, an MSc from the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, and first class BSc honours in Logic and Mathematics, also from the University of Sussex. He began his career as a mathematics teacher in Zimbabwe (1993 to 1996), before moving to the National Foundation for Educational Research in England in 1998. He held short-term appointments at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, while completing his PhD. His first post-doctoral position was with the University of Oxford's Department of Educational Studies, under Professor Richard Pring. From Oxford he moved to the University of Manchester in 1995; at the same time he also created the Education and Training Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. He took up his current chair at Newcastle University in July 1998. He is a member of the academic advisory councils for several think-tanks, including Reform, Civitas, Institute of Economic Affairs, Taxpayers' Alliance and Globalisation Institute. He is an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, and a thought-leader for Schoolventures.