James Tooley

Professor James Tooley, PhD, is Director of the E.G. West Centre. He was, until 2002, Director of Education at the Institute of Economic Affairs, and is Professor of Education Policy at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He is noted for his calls for the removal of the state from education.

Professor Tooley directed the global study of investment opportunities for private education in developing countries for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - the private finance arm of the World Bank - which led to his Institute of Economic Affairs publication The Global Education Industry, (1999).

Tooley has made several appearances in mainstream media in the UK, including on BBC Radio 4 and on the BBC TV programme Newsnight, which in 2005 allowed him to present a film arguing his case for private schools in Africa.

As an aside to his main work he wrote a polemic, The Miseducation of Women (Continuum International Publishing Group, June 2002), where he argued that women have become unhappier as a result of concentrating more on their careers than the family role they once fulfilled.