Advisory Board

Baroness Morris of Yardley, Advisory Board	Dame Ruth Silver, Advisory Board	Dr Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah, Advisory Board

Baroness Morris of Yardley, Advisory Board
Estelle Morris started her career as a teacher in Coventry in 1974. She was elected as a member of Warwick District Council in 1979 and led the Labour Group for seven years.

In 1992 Estelle was elected as MP for Birmingham Yardley; in 1997 she became Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the department for Education and Employment and in 1998 she became the Minister for School Standards.

In 2001 Estelle was appointed to the post of Secretary of State for the Department for Education and Skills. She resigned from this post in 2002 but returned to the front bench eight months later as Minister in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

She was appointed to the House of Lords after the May 2005 election. Estelle became the Pro Vice-Chancellor of Sunderland University in 2005 and Chair of the Strategy Board of the Institute of Effective Education at the University of York in 2007.

Dame Ruth Silver, Advisory Board

Ruth is currently Principal and Chief Executive at Lewisham College (London) which was described as outstanding by Ofsted in its 2006 inspection, won the National Beacon Award for Employer Engagement in November 2007 and the prestigious Employee Standard a month later. Ruth also holds a number of national posts linked to learning in further education, which include: Member of the London Skills and Employment Board; Advisor to the Education Select Committee in the House of Commons on Further Education matters, Chair of the Strategic Skills Commission and Scrutineer to the Cabinet Office’s Ministerial Network on Social Exclusion.

Having studied Psychology and Literature at Glasgow and Southampton Universities as a NUM scholar, Ruth trained at the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations in Adolescence and Transition and became a qualified, experienced teacher. Employment has spanned child guidance, teaching and inspection and service for the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Employment, developing national education policy on personal effectiveness in young people. In June 2006, Ruth Silver was awarded a damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to further education.

Dr Barfuor Adjei-Barwuah, Advisory Board

Adjei has a rich and varied experience in education and training. He lectured in Urban Geography at the University of Ghana from 1972 till 1975. After moving to Britain, he served as Pick-Up Co-ordinator for the then Erith College of Technology in Kent (designing training courses for business and industry as well as handling the flagship programme - Employment Training - to support the long-term unemployed access work) and later as Head of Faculty of Access and Development at the Hackney Adult Education Institute.

In 1993 Adjei was appointed a Development Officer at the Further Education Unit (now Learning and Skills Development Agency) and delivered programmes in staff development and training in colleges across England and Wales.  In 1995 he was invited to serve on the Further Education Funding Council’s ‘Widening Participation Committee’ (popularly known as the Kennedy Committee) which reviewed issues of access to further education in England.  He was once a part-time lecturer for the Open University and also once served as a member of the governing body of the London Open College Federation.

Adjei retired from the Learning and Skills Development Agency in 2000 to become Ghana’s Ambassador to Japan with concurrent accreditation as High Commissioner to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Papua New Guinea. Considered to be one of Ghana’s foremost diplomats, he retired from the diplomatic service in May 2008.