Tributes pour in after former Independent education editor dies aged 69

‘He was the outstanding education correspondent of his generation’

Richard Garner was education editor at The Independent from 2001 to 2016.

Tributes have poured in for the former education editor of The Independent who has died from cancer at the age of 69.

Richard Garner, who worked at The Independent for 15 years, was a specialist in the education sector for more than three decades.

He began reporting on the subject in the 1980s at the Birmingham Evening Mail before moving to the Times Educational Supplement (TES) and the Daily Mirror.

After 12 years as the education correspondent at The Mirror, Richard became education editor of The Independent from 2001 until the title went digital-only in 2016.

Richard, who was a keen fan of cricket and the theatre, is survived by his wife Barbara who he married three weeks ago.

During his retirement, he turned his attention to fiction and wrote four crime novels.

Richard also wrote about his insights as a long-standing education reporter in his book The Thirty Years War, where he gave his verdict on the 16 education secretaries he came across.

Alastair Campbell led the tributes to Richard describing him as a “lovely man and a brilliant journalist”.

“An education specialist who cared not just about stories but about the role of education in the life of the country and of its children and young people,” he said.

During his time as an education correspondent, he was a firm supporter of Lord Baker’s University Technical Colleges (UTCs) – which give 14-to 18-year-olds the opportunity to develop vocational skills.

Lord Baker, who was education secretary from 1986 to 1989, said: “I was very sorry to hear of the death of Richard Garner the education correspondent of The Independent and contributor to the TES. He was the outstanding education correspondent of his generation.

“He had acquired an immense knowledge of how schools, FE colleges and universities really worked and he was able to assess how all changes in education since 1945 affected them which was often quite different from what their authors had intended.”

“His book on the post war education system was by far the fairest and the best,” Lord Baker added.

Sir Michael Barber, chair of the Office for Students (OfS), said: “I always found Richard Garner to be a well-informed, rigorous and humane journalist determined to understand and explain. Also a delightful human being and person of integrity. Great company.”

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “I am very saddened to hear of the passing of Richard Garner, father of the house of education journalists, intrepid author of crime novels and a lovely, principled, gentle man. May he rest in peace.”

Speaking to The Independent, his wife Barbara said: “He converted me into a cricket fan within months of the start of our relationship and the cricket World Cup final, which we had tickets for, was one of the happiest days of both our lives.

“We went together to Sri Lanka and the West Indies and had booked to see the second test in South Africa which he was sadly too ill to attend.”

She added: “We had a relationship where we could discuss anything and where we were both enriched by knowing each other. His loss for me is beyond words.”