Pupil who gave academics desserts spiked with laxatives turns into Welsh colleges chief

His teenage naughty streak bought him expelled when he gave his academics chocolate cornflake desserts spiked with laxatives.

However how the tables have turned for Owen Evans, who has simply been appointed… a chief inspector of colleges.

He carried out the prank within the Eighties – however felt being thrown out of faculty was the ‘huge kick up the underside’ he wanted to develop into successful in life. 

Now 53, Mr Evans has been appointed chief inspector of colleges in Wales and can take up the job in January.

The position follows a four-year stint at Welsh-language tv channel S4C – the place he’s at the moment chief government – and a earlier stint as deputy everlasting secretary of the Welsh authorities, chargeable for training and public companies.

How the tables have turned for Owen Evans, who has simply been appointed… a chief inspector of colleges

In that position, he drew up a listing of 40 colleges to be prioritised for funding – nicknamed the ‘naughty forty’ by some.

Following Mr Evans’s chocolate cornflake cake stunt, solely 17 of 40 academics turned up for varsity the following day. 

The incident, which occurred when he was 16, led to his father giving him a stern talking-to – however Mr Evans recalled shaking it off ‘like water off a duck’s again’. 

He was, nonetheless, affected by ‘the look of disappointment in my mom’s eyes’ when he was expelled from the college in Aberystwyth, west Wales.

He stated: ‘Getting expelled was an enormous kick up the underside.’

Mr Evans admitted that he was lazy in school, however stated that going to an extra training faculty to complete his research ‘was the making of me’. 

He added: ‘If I did not flip up the trainer would ring my home and ask the place I used to be after which choose me up. It was partly the disgrace of being picked up that meant I began going.’

Mr Evans later went to Swansea College earlier than starting a profession in enterprise, serving to develop BT’s broadband technique and later changing into a civil servant.

His new position is at Estyn, the workplace of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Training and Coaching in Wales. It comes after almost two years of Covid disruption within the training sector.

After Mr Evans carried out the prank at Ysgol Penweddig faculty, protection of his exploits made nationwide information and even ended up as a cartoon within the Day by day Mail.

His mom labored as a nurse and his father was in tv – however one set of his grandparents had a smallholding with a number of sheep and younger Owen appreciated nothing greater than serving to out on the native farms.

And at one level, it even seemed just like the lifetime of a shepherd is likely to be for him. Mr Evans instructed Wales News: ‘I used to be requested by a buddy’s father if I may cowl for his or her shepherd in the course of the holidays and thought, why not?

‘I did not have a canine however I did have a shiny aluminium criminal, which I assumed was fairly hi-tech on the time. Think about being paid to stroll the hills of mid-Wales. The early mornings weren’t so nice although.’

He added: ‘I appreciated the independence of getting my very own revenue, I met some superb individuals and gained some nice expertise.’