Professor Augustine “Gus” John was born in Grenada and has lived mainly in the UK since 1964. He was a member of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) in the middle to late 1960s and a member of the Council of the Institute of Race Relations in the early 1970s. He is a scholar/activist who has done notable work in the fields of education policy, the role of schooling and education in promoting social justice, school improvement, management and international development. Since the 1960s he has been active in issues of education and schooling in Britain’s inner cities such as London, Leicester, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. He was Assistant Education Officer and Head of Community Education in the Inner London Education Authority and in 1989 became the first African Director of Education in Britain, a post he held for just under 8 years.
Prof John has worked in a number of university settings, including as Visiting Faculty Professor of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (for 10 years). Since 2007, Gus John has been an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the UCL Institute of Education and from 2016, Visiting Professor at Coventry University, where he works with the Vice Chancellor and University Leadership Team in improving the strategic management of the University and building a culture of equity.
