Stuart Sexton

Stuart Sexton is head of the IPSET Education Unit, and founder director of the East Africa Education Foundation. He has campaigned over three decades for the removal of the state from education.

Sexton has a degree in chemistry. His first career was as a marketing executive with Shell International.

A Tory councillor for many years, he acted as special advisor to the Conservative opposition during the 1970s, and then as special advisor to Education Secretaries Mark Carlise and Keith Joseph in the late 70s and early 80s. He has also written speeches for Margaret Thatcher.

During the 1980s Sexton was head of the Education Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs. In 1986 he formed the Independent Primary and Secondary Education Trust (IPSET) from the IEA Education Unit, and used it to help found a private primary school, Warlingham Park School, from where IPSET (and Sexton) is still based.

Sexton was Tory candidate for Workington (Cumbria) in the 1992 general election, and for North Down (Northern Ireland) in the June 1995 by-election.

In July 2003 he established the East African Education Foundation (EAEF) with Sir Graham Hills, which provided the capital funding for the new Nile University in Northern Uganda.