He took the first year of the Philosophy, Politics and Economics bachelor's degree course at Keble College, Oxford, before transferring to read History.
[1] As part of NTU's National Institute of Education he visited Singapore secondary schools and junior colleges, and provided services and advice to the Ministry of Education, Singapore Tourism Board, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
[5] In 2006, he moved to The Open University, where he helped to chair the production of a new module, "Empire: 1492-1975 (A326)"., which has been delivered by blended online and traditional methods to several hundred students yearly since 2009.
[6] From 2009 to December 2015 he was director of the Ferguson Centre for Asian and African Studies, editing its series of online working papers.
In 2012 he was expert witness in the Penang High Court, testifying on the historically contested and diverse ways and degrees to which people could be defined as 'communist' in Malaysia and Singapore.
[12][13] He is also involved with the Imperial War Museum in a collaborative studentship, jointly supervising doctoral research on The Impact of postwar counter-insurgency on the British military.