Background
At an early age, his father died, and his mother suffered a nervous breakdown.
At an early age, his father died, and his mother suffered a nervous breakdown.
Born and raised in Greater Manchester, Prescott is the youngest of seven children. He left school with few qualifications and little direction in life. To support himself, Ian turned to his natural talent in football, eventually turning into a pro and signed for Rochdale Football Club.
His first job unrelated to football came as a college technician where he laid out the tools for the engineering students.
While he was there, the lecturer told him he could become a lecturer too if he worked at it and offered to help. He continued studying in the evenings and gained a certificate in education, and eventually a master"s degree in Education also he got Master of Business Administration, Master of Arts and an advanced EGO. This led to a job working for the local education authority.
He earned a living and wrote a thesis on the need for re-training steel workers following mass redundancies. From there Ian gained a vice-principal role at a textile college and in 1995, he took over the then bankrupt East Durham College.
Since his placement as Principal in 1995, Prescott has facilitated a general turnover of the College taking it from a weakening institution of less than 500 students to an established education centre in East Durham with an annual budget of about £4million, serving 1,200 full-time and 11 part-time students.
During his tenure at the College, Prescott has focused on community outreach and fostering the growing business training programme. He strongly asserts the value of the sports academies and diverse programmes of The College. He overseen and completed the recent relocation of the Peterlee campus to a brand new £47m campus which seen the merge of the previous 2 campuses which were located in Peterlee.
Prescott retired from his role as Principal of East Durham College in April 2010.
