Speakers
Conference chairs:
(day 2) Jeffrey Defries, Chief Executive, CRAC: The Career Development Organisation
(day 3) Anthony McClaran, Chief Executive, UCAS.
Plenary Sessions
8 April 2008
2pm – 3.30pm
Plenary session 1: Welcome and Opening Speeches
John Stone, Chief Executive, Learning and Skills Network
9 April 2008
2.15pm – 3.45pm
Plenary session 2: Guiding young people: what role should education eand employers play?
Chaired by Jeffrey Defries, Chief Executive, CRAC
Rob Wye, National Director, Strategy and Communications, Learning and Skills Council
Graham Orchard, Head: Technical Assurance Group, RWE npower Engineering
9 April 2008
1.20pm – 2.50pm
Plenary session 3: Privilege, Access and Widening Participation
Chaired by Anthony McClaran, Chief Executive, UCAS
Bill Rammell MP, Minister of State, Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills
John Widdowson, Principal, New College Durham
John Widdowson joined New College Durham as Principal and Chief Executive in August 1998. He began his career as a lawyer in local government after which he held a series of teaching posts in Derbyshire and East Anglia. Before joining New College Durham, he was Vice Principal at Cambridge Regional College. |
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New College Durham is a Mixed Economy College and as such the College is a significant provider of full and part time vocational further and higher education in the county and the region.
The College works in partnership with a number of schools both within and outside County Durham and is actively developing with them a range of innovative approaches to the 14-19 curriculum. John is Chair of Aimhigher County Durham, part of the national Aimhigher network which exists to encourage greater participation in Higher Education. Nationally, he is Chair of the Mixed Economy Group of colleges, which represents those colleges offering significant amounts of Higher Education and of the Further Education National Consortium, a group of over 100 colleges and other educational bodies involved in the development of vocational learning materials. John has recently been appointed as a Board Member of the Association of Colleges.
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Anthony McClaran, Chief Executive, UCAS
Anthony McClaran, Chief Executive of UCAS, joined the Admissions Service in 1995 as Head of the Academic Services and Development and was appointed Deputy Chief Executive a year later. He became Acting Chief Executive in January 2003 and was appointed Chief Executive in December. A graduate in English and American Literature from the University of Kent. |
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Anthony began his career at the University of Warwick where, among other posts, he was Admissions Officer. In 1992 he moved to the University of Hull to take up the post of Academic Registrar, with responsibiltiy for an office which included recruitment, admissions, student records, international affairs and the internal allocation of resources. In 1995 he was appointed Acting Registrar and Secretary.
Anthony sat on the Council of the University of Gloucestershire from 1997 till February this year. He served on Professor Schwartz's Admissions to HE Steering Group, the HE Group for the Tomlinson Review of 14-19 Qualifications and the SHA Commission on Post-qualification Application (PQA). He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of University of Administrators and is governor of a local school. Anthony is also a member of HEFCE Widening Participation Strategic Committee and Sir Alan Wilson's PQA Consultation Group.
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Professor Alex Hughes, Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Kent
Professor Alex Hughes is Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Kent. She has responsibility for communications and marketing, fundraising and the University’s international and European activities. These include the University of the Transmanche and Kent’s campus in Brussels. |
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Professor Hughes was also Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Quality and Students at the University of Birmingham. She was formerly Head of the School of Humanities and is Professor of Twentieth-Century French Literature at the University.
Professor Hughes’s academic background and research interests include twentieth-century French prose fiction, life writing, women's writing, visual culture, gender studies and issues of culture-contact. She has published on Violette Leduc, Simone de Beauvoir, Serge Doubrovsky, Hervé Guibert, modern French autobiography, and post-war gay and lesbian writing. In 1999, her study of gender issues (Heterographies: Sexual Difference in French Autobiography) was awarded the French Studies RH Gapper book prize. She is co-editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Contemporary French Culture, and has also co-edited two collections of essays in new research areas, one (in collaboration with James S Williams, Kent) on gender and French film and the other (with Andrea Noble, Durham) on the intersections of photography and narrative. Her research currently focuses on French perceptions of
China. She has recently written a book entitled France/China: Intercultural Imaginings.
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John Stone, Chief Executive, Learning and Skills Network
John Stone is the Chief Executive of the Learning and Skills Network, which took over the delivery of development and support services from Learning and Skills Development Agency in April 2006. His key focus is ensuring that the independent organisation delivers on its promise to make a tangible difference to education and training. |
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He has a first degree in physics and his education career spans more than 30 years. While at university he developed a keen interest in education and turned down the offer of a research post in Education Technology. He opted for a more hands-on career path and became a lecturer at Merton Technical College, after successfully replying to an advertisement for a ‘physicist with an interest in music’. He was hooked into education by his first job and held several lecturing posts before becoming vice principal of Swindon College in 1992.
Prior to joining LSN, he was principal of Hammersmith and West London College. During his time at the College he led the merger of Hammersmith and Ealing College, to form one of the largest FE colleges in the UK.
He has an active role in the London Development Agency, serving on both the Business and Skills sub-committee and the Regeneration and Development sub-committee. He also maintains a strong interest in e-learning and is a member of the e-skills 14-19 Diploma Development Group.
In his spare time he is a keen pianist and plays the guitar. In 1997 he published his first book, ‘Increasing Effectiveness - the Management of Quality’.
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Rob Wye , National Director, Strategy and Communications, LSC
Rob Wye has more than twenty years experience in education and training policy. After graduating from Cambridge in 1976 Rob joined the Employment Department where he worked in a number of areas including pay policy, health and safety, disability policy and Private Office. |
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In 1981 he moved up to Sheffield and joined the Manpower Services Commission focusing on training and vocational education issues including Training Access Points, Learning Technologies, Open Learning, GNVQs, education-business links, Modern Apprenticeships and New Start.
In 1997 Rob moved to Northampton and commuted to work in the Finance Directorate of the Department for Education and Employment in London.
He was the Executive Director of Northamptonshire LSC from November 2000. From February to July 2002 he was on secondment as the LSC’s National Director of Policy and Development, where he played a key role in working with the DfES, particularly on developing the Success for All document and the subsequent consultation. His current position is as Director of the Strategy and Communications group and Interim Director of the Learning Group, working alongside Mark Haysom, Chief Executive, on policy and strategy.
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Bill Rammell MP , Minister of State, Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education
Bill Rammell was elected Member of Parliament for Harlow in 1997. He was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Tessa Jowell in June 2001, and promoted to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office in October 2002.
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Bill Rammell also served on the Education and Employment Committee in 2000 and was also a member of a Select Committee on European Scrutiny in 2001. Before entering Parliament, Bill Rammell was the General Manager of the Unviersity of London Union, Head of Youth Services for Basildon Council and worked for the National Union of Students and British Rail. He was a member of Harlow District Council for 1985 to 1997. He was President of Cardiff University Students' Union in 1982/83. Bill Rammell is married with two children who are educated in local secondary schools.
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Professor Deian Hopkin, Vice-Chancellor, London South Bank University
Professor Deian Hopkin was appointed to this post in 2001. Born and educated in Llanelli, South Wales, he attended the first ever Welsh-medium school established by a local authority, followed by a scholarship to Llandovery College. He graduated in history at the University of Wales Aberystwyth where he also completed his PhD. |
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After a brief period in Queen Mary College London, he returned to the Department of History at Aberystwyth where he taught for 24 years and became Head of Department.
For most of that time he was also a tutor in the Open University and was seconded to the OU to develop new courses. In 1991 he was appointed Dean of Human Sciences at City of London Polytechnic which in 1992 became London Guildhall University (now London Metropolitan University) and where, in 1996, he was promoted to Vice-Provost.
He is substantially involved in the evolving skills agenda and education policy. He is Chairman of the Skills Task Group of Universities UK and a member of UK Skills for Health, the sector skills council, on whose behalf he chairs the Diploma Development Partnership for Society, Health and Development. He is co-chair of the HE Engagement Board which bridges the work of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). He has been appointed by the Secretary of State to be one of the “champions” of the new 14-19 educational reforms and also to the national Board of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). He also serves on the Board of Foundation Degree Forward. He frequently contributes to the education press and media including the Guardian and Times Higher, as well as to the new 14-19 HE Bulletin published by the DCSF.
Professor Hopkin has been elected as Vice Chairman of London Higher for 2006-8 and serves as HE Adviser to the London Skills and Employment Board, chaired by the Mayor of London.
He is also active in charitable activities. He is Chairman of UNIAID Foundation, the national charity giving financial advice to students and also directly supporting students in financial difficulty, and Vice-Chairman of Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA). He is a member of the Council for Industry and Higher Education and of the Public Interest General Council and a Patron of Tower Hamlets Summer University.
He has published widely on Labour and press history and on the use of computers in History and was co-founder of the Association for History and Computing and founding editor of Llafur, The Journal of Welsh Labour History. He has extensive broadcasting experience and was a member of the BBC General Advisory Council, the Educational Broadcasting Council for Wales and for many years the Court and Council of the National Library of Wales, where he still serves as an adviser to the Welsh National Political Archive.
Professor Hopkin is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, as well as a Freeman of the City of London, the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and the Guild of Educators. In 2003 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales.
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Gideon Arulmani (PhD) is a NICEC International Fellow. Based in India, he is the Founder and Managing Trustee of The Promise Foundation and a Director of the Consultant Psychologists Group. As a researcher-practitioner, he has focused on the psychological linkages between poverty and development and the role career counselling plays in helping the disadvantaged take control of their life trajectories. His ideas have been presented at numerous conferences, journals and as a handbook on the theory and practice of career counselling. He has also executed assignments on guidance and counselling in Sub Saharan Africa and South East Asia and is a consultant to various international organizations. |
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| Graham Orchard CEng, FIMechE, BSc (Hons) is a Chartered Engineer with 27 years in the power Industry. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a registered European Engineer. Graham is currently head of the Technical Assurance Group within the power generation business of RWE npower. The Group has a key role as part of RWE npower's governance processes, focussing on asset integrity and process safety. |
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Following initial experience in the aerospace industry and graduating from the University of Bath with an Honours Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Graham joined the then Central Electricity Generating Board’s Scientific Services Department. He has held a number of posts within Engineering Departments within the power generation industry through privatisation with National Power, subsequently Innogy, and now RWE npower.
Graham has been involved across a variety of engineering activities ranging from design and integrity management of power generation pressure systems, boilers and structures, through power generation incident investigations in Portugal, to being the Engineering Division’s representative on a UK trade mission to China.
Graham is a member of the British Standards Institution’s Standards Policy and Strategy Committee and is a Member of Council and Past Chairman of the Engineering Equipment and Material Users Association.
Graham is a member of RWE npower’s Professional Engineers and Scientists Development Group and is actively involved in the mentoring and development of engineering graduates and technicians to achieve professional registration and for their future roles within RWE npower. He is a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Academic Standards Committee involved in the accreditation of mechanical engineering degrees.
Graham is a member of, and represents RWE npower, on the 14-19 Engineering Diploma Development Partnership (EDDP) Strategy Group.
