HOST Policy Research: The Team
Peter Foster
Peter Foster is an independent researcher and consultant, who began his association with HOST in 2000. He specialises in research and evaluation related to education and training, careers and the labour market. Born in London, he has a varied background, having worked in advertising and the Civil Service, before studying as a mature student at Birkbeck College for his first degree, and then qualifying as a teacher at Goldsmiths. Later, for his MA in Education in 1995 he specialised in evaluation, the use of labour market information (LMI) and vocational education and training.
Much of Peter’s work during the last twenty-five years has been as a practitioner outside of teaching, related to careers education and guidance, and the vocational aspects of provision in further education and work-based learning. He worked for more than ten years in the education/industry arena, first with the ILEA, and then with West Sussex Careers Service, and later the West Sussex Education Business Partnership (EBP). For several years, he was a contributor to the CIOLA Directory, writing the section on LMI.
Since becoming an independent policy researcher and consultant in 1999, Peter has been engaged in qualitative research on a variety of projects mostly centred around Information, Advice and Guidance or LMI, having worked on several projects with Sussex Advice & Skills and Nextstep, but topics have also included the employment of people with disabilities, women returners, and employers’ attitudes to child-care provision and family-friendly employment practices.
With HOST he has worked on a wide range of projects in the education and employment fields, contributing to policy research studies covering a variety of issues including government-funded work-based learning, basic skills in the workplace, employers’ skills needs, a review of Lifeskills provision, a national review of diversity in public sector employment, a review of teacher/trainer qualifications in basic skills across the post-16 sector, and several evaluations for the Training and Development Agency for Schools. He is currently part of the HOST team evaluating QIA programmes and is a member of the team working on the ongoing programme of sector skills pilot evaluation studies for the LSC National Office.
Peter is himself a firm believer in lifelong learning, having studied for his first degree and teaching qualification as a mature student, before going on much later to post-graduate studies with the Open University. With a broad interest in the arts, and writing in particular, he has recently returned to studying with the OU, and in the last few years has completed three courses in creative writing with the Open University.
Married with two grown-up children, Peter spends much of his leisure time on the river bank. When not indulging his passion for angling, he can often be seen walking his English Springer Spaniel somewhere on the Sussex Downs.
› John Barry › Alan Bloomfield › Stefan Burkey › Simon Bysshe › Frances Chinemana › Peter Duschinsky › Peter Foster › Claire Harris › Inge Hill › Jane Holland › Jacqueline Hughes › Wayne Isaac › Alyson Jenkins › Alison Kennedy › Susan Lanz › Sue Ottley › David Parsons › Valerie Rowe › Jo Verrill › Jenny Wall › Kenneth Walsh › Dick Willis