CEER Staff

Professor Alan Smithers BSc, PhD, MSc, PhD, MEd, CPsychol.

Alan Smithers is the Director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research. He has been previously Sydney Jones Professor of Education at the University of Liverpool (1998-2004), Professor of Policy Research at Brunel University (1996-1998), and Professor of Education at the University of Manchester (1976-1996). He was first a research scientist at London University and was recruited to the study of education.

His most recent research has been on educating clever children; the impact of international comparisons on education policies; school admissions; and physics in schools and universities. He has also published extensively on school examination and test results; teacher training, recruitment and retention; specialist schools; independent schools, technical and vocational education, headship, and single-sex education. He has written many refereed papers in biology, psychology and education, and reports and books on education and employment.

He has served on national committees including the National Curriculum Council, the Beaumont Review of National Vocational Qualifications and the Royal Society Committee on Teacher Supply. Since 1997 he has been specialist adviser to the House of Commons Education Committee.

Professor Smithers can be contacted directly:
Email: alan.smithers@buckingham.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1280 820270 (direct line)

Professor Alastair McCall B.A. (Hons) (Durham)

Alastair is the Deputy Director and Professor of Quantitative Studies. In a career spanning 35 years in journalism, he has risen from a news reporter on the Journal in Newcastle to Assistant Editor (Special Projects) of the Sunday Times, via BBC television, Daily Telegraph and Daily Express. At the Sunday Times he has become one of the country’s leading data journalists.

The best known of the Sunday Times’ supplements he has compiled/edited are Good University Guide, Parent Power, Rich List and Giving List, but there have also been the Sunday Times Sports Rich List, The 100 Best Companies To Work For, Green List, Good Hospital Guide, Pay List, Tax List and Power List.

Alastair introduced the first (and so far only) newspaper-published social inclusion ranking of universities, which led to an invitation to Downing Street to contribute to a roundtable discussion on the Widening Participation agenda. His Rich List 2020 was highly commended in the British Press Awards. He has been a regular speaker at university and school conferences, wealth and charity seminars, and Times and Sunday Times reader events.

Mandy Bungey, B.Sc., MICB, PM.Dip

Mandy Bungey is an independent IT consultant who has been associated with the Centre for Education and Employment Research since 1997. Mandy is responsible for data handling, providing general IT guidance and support, and maintaining the CEER website.

In addition to providing general IT support, she has assisted Professor Smithers in producing the Good Teacher Training Guide for more than 10 years.

Email: mandy.bungey@gmx.com

Former Staff

Dr Pamela Robinson BA, MSc, PhD, PGCE.

Pamela Robinson was the Deputy Director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at The University of Buckingham. Following extensive experience in teaching and teacher training she was appointed to a research fellowship at the University of Manchester in 1984. She moved to a lectureship at Brunel University in 1996 where she set up the doctoral education programme. She returned to full-time research on her appointment to Liverpool University in 1998 and moved to Buckingham in 2004.

She has collaborated with Professor Alan Smithers in the work of the Centre for Education and Employment Research since 1984 and has published widely in the fields of international education, teacher provision, flows into science and technology, gender and education, and further and higher education.

Dr Robinson can be contacted directly:
Email: pamela.robinson@buckingham.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1280 820353 (direct line)

Dr John Williams BSc, PhD, FRSC, CChem, CSci.

John Williams was Senior Research Fellow in the Centre with particular reference to science and engineering education. He has wide experience of education, scientific research and promoting research in education. After a chemistry degree and qualifying as a teacher he taught for five years. He then became a research chemist for the Burmah Oil Company, obtaining a PhD while there. After a period in local authority education management he became Senior Executive (General Education) in the Engineering Council. More recently he has been Senior Executive (Science and Engineering Education) at the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Head of Gatsby Technical Education Projects Ltd.

He has published a number of research papers in chemistry, particularly on phosphetans, some of which led to patents. He is also co-author of the book Quality in Learning: A Capability Approach in Higher Education, London: Kogan Page, 1992.