Robert Whelan
Robert George Whelan (born 31 December 1951) was the original Deputy Director of the right-wing think-tank Civitas. He is Managing Director of the New Model School Company, set up by supporters of Civitas in 2003 to create a network of low-cost independent schools. Previously he was the Assistant Director of the IEA Health and Welfare Unit and from 2000-04 was Director of the Family Education Trust (the moral conservative pressure group formerly known as Family and Youth Concern).[1]
Whelan is editorial director at Civitas and a visiting fellow at the University of Derby’s Centre for Educational Research.
Advocating extreme privatisation
In 1996 Whelan wrote an article in the Institute of Economic Affairs's journal Economic Affairs suggesting that multi-national corporations should be invited to bid for the right to run countries in Africa. According to the Press Association Whelan proposed that corporations should be granted a lease to run a country for around 21 years, claiming that they would have an interest in establishing the conditions necessary for economic growth, such as national security and law and order, as this would increase tax revenues. He was quoted as saying: 'Foreign aid has created too many wealthy dictators for us to have any very high expectations of what can be achieved by making cash grants to Africa. The only answer would be to reform the way in which African countries are governed.' [2]
Publications
Whelan's books include The Corrosion of Charity (1996); Involuntary Action: How Voluntary is the 'Voluntary' Sector? (1999); Octavia Hill’s Letters to Fellow-Workers, 1872-1911, co-edited with Anne Anderson (2005); and The Corruption of the Curriculum (ed.) (2007).
He also authored the report 'Broken Homes and Battered Children and Teaching Sex in Schools', published by the Family Education Trust in 1994.
Affiliations
- Family Education Trust (FET) - Whelan served as FET's director from 2000 until 2004. In his outgoing director's report Whelan said that his 'appointment as Director had been a serendipitous idea of Valerie Riches and had not been intended as a permanent one. He had enjoyed and valued the work which he had been able to combine with his work for Civitas to the benefit of both organisations. He praised the work of his former assistant, now Director, Norman Wells. [3]
- Speaker [4] at a Battle of Ideas session in 2007 on 'Moralising the curriculum'.[5]
Notes
- ↑ About Us, Civitas, accessed 3 June 2009.
- ↑ Bob Newton, 'PRIVATISING AFRICA - THINK TANK MAN'S SHAKE-UP PLAN', Press Association, 27 September 1996
- ↑ Annual General Meeting & Conference - 12 June 2004, Family Education Trust, Bulletin No. 116 Summer 2004, acc March 2012
- ↑ Robert Whelan], Battle of Ideas, 2007, acc March 2012
- ↑ 'Moralising the curriculum':The battle for children’s minds, Battle of Ideas, Sunday 28 October 2007
