Ruth Silver

Dame Ruth Muldoon Silver, (born January 1945, Lanarkshire) is a British academic administrator and promoter of education policy.[1][2] She was Principal of Lewisham College for 17 years until 2009,[3] was chair of the Working Men's College governing board from 2002-05. In 2010, she became the chair of The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), a public body for Further Education and skills development.

Before beginning her career in education, Silver studied psychology and literature at Glasgow and Southampton universities as an NUM scholar and trained at the Tavistock Clinic in Adolescence and Transition. She went on to teach and work in child guidance before moving into leadership and policy development roles.

She has served as an adviser to the Select Committee in the House of Commons and a member of the Skills Commission. She sat on the Edge Foundation (ADHD), which aims to raise the status of vocational learning; the Horse's Mouth, an online peer-mentoring enterprise; and the Trinity Laban Conservatoire.

Silver was appointed Chief Assessor for the Centre of Excellence in Leadership's Principals Qualifying Programme. Her employment has included child guidance, teaching and inspection, and in-service at the Department for Education and Skills, developing national education policy on personal development in young people. She is a member of the London Skills and Employment Board. In 2010, she was appointed to chair the National Taskforce on the Future of the Careers Profession.

Silver was a founder member of the London Skills and Employment Board and an adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee on Education and Skills and currently co-chairs the Skills Commission, an independent body that meets every month in Parliament to discuss issues in skills, further education and training policy.

She was a founding trustee of the Edge Foundation, which aims to raising the status of vocational learning, and was the first chief assessor for the Qualifying Programme for Principals. She is also visiting professor on educational developments at London South Bank University.

She was a member of the UK Women and Work Commission. In 2014, she worked with Glasgow's colleges in the post-merger realignment of their curricula. In 2015-16, she chaired the Scottish Government’s Commission on Widening Access to Universities.