Orient Global’s US$100m (£50m) education fund

The Orient Global Foundation (OGF) is the philanthropic arm of the Orient Global Group, a Singapore-based investment fund run by Richard Chandler. The Chandler brothers (Richard and Christopher) are New Zealand’s richest men. After building up a NZ$4bn (£1.43bn) fortune, they split their company Sovereign Global Investments, with Richard setting up Orient Global and Christopher, Legatum Capital.

Orient Global have hired UK educationalist Professor James Tooley of Newcastle University as a special advisor to help the fund invest in ‘entrepreneurial projects that will help improve education in developing countries’. Tooley, who has done research for OFSTED and sat on a committe at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), is probably best known in education circles for the radical proposals to the challenges of twenty-first century education he proposed in his book Reclaiming Education. Tooley’s basic thesis is that in developing nations, it’s entrepreneurs, not governments or aid agencies, who are delivering the real education solutions.

Tooley’s thesis was endorsed in Ron Perkinson’s keynote presentation at the British Council ‘Going Global 2’ summit in Edinburgh last December. Perkinson is the Senior Vice President at Whitney International University Systems and previously held senior positions with the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank.

While OGF’s first investments are expected to be in India and Africa, the population boom in the Middle East, plus the fact that Legatum Capital is based in Dubai, may yet see the two Chandler brothers working together again, but this time in education.
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