The importance of good education

Good education is vital for empowering individuals, building stronger economies, and promoting a more equitable and stable society. It provides essential life skills, enhances opportunities, and helps address complex social challenges.

Looking back on my life, one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I had a terrific education. It began in 1957. My father was in the American Air Force and he got retrenched. And we ended up as a family moving back to Bath in England. Before that I had gone to 11 schools. I got accepted to go to the City of Bath Boys Grammar School. And it was a gamble by the headmaster.

And I ended up after my final year being the Head Boy of the school, Captain of the first 15 rugby team. And then when the A-Level Reserves came out, I stunned myself with fantastic results. For my A levels I got an A for  Physics and Mathematics. And in Chemistry, my best subject, I got a B.  But at S-Level, which is above my A-Levels in Chemistry, I got a high distinction. So I was set up. And it was suggested because of my results that I apply to Oxford and Cambridge.

I ended up going to Cambridge, which was a fantastic education experience. In the first two years, I was studying Natural Sciences and Chemistry. And I went to the jobs people at the end of two years to work out what my career should be and get some advice. And the first words to me were, get out of Chemistry. There are far too many chemists being produced around the world. We think the subjects you should look at are Law or Economics. And in Cambridge, we have this unusual system that if you do a Part 1 tripos in Natural Sciences, at the end, after two years, you can switch to a new subject in just a one-year selected course. And I decided Economics was much more interesting than Law. And doing Economics was an incredible benefit later in my life. I worked for four years after graduating, starting with IBM. And then I joined a couple of startups that both went bankrupt. And my CV wasn’t looking that good. So what happened was then I managed to get into the London Business School.

Now, at Cambridge, I was much more social than studious. ents. I’m the first to admit it. But at the Business School, what happened was I was pretty social the first year and a half. But I buckled down for the last three months. And at the London Business School, there were 100 people in the class. And half your marks were your class mark. And half your exam results.  We sat for four exams that you did at the end of the two-year period.

Well, in my case, what happened, out of the class work, I was ranked 50 out of 100. And then when they did the exams, I  topped, three of them, and came second in the other. They had to give me a distinction in my MBA There was a bit of uproar because most people associated me with being very social, not studious, but that’s the reality. So that meant that going around looking for jobs, et cetera, meeting people, having Cambridge on your CV is fantastic. Then I had the London Business School, whose reputation now is much better than it was when I was there, which was 71 to 73. But having an MBA was a distinction in the London Business School. It wasn’t quite as good as having Cambridge, but pretty close to it. So that’s the story of my education.

Subsequently we had two daughters and when they started primary school I asked the teacher how they taught reading .  I was told they used a variety of methods.  Slsrm Bells went off becaue I had brcome a phonics fan.  It took a year butt the three of waded through the 3 Hay Wingo books and both daughters were excellent readers.  Even better so are their cheir children.

Easily one of my proudest achievements.’