Tom Prebble

Biography[edit]

Born in Sussex, England, on 29 November 1945, Prebble was the son of Anglo-Catholic Anglican clergyman Kenneth Ralph Prebble and Mary Prebble (née Hoad).^[1][2][3] He moved to New Zealand in 1948 with his parents, older brother John, and younger brother Richard, when his father became vicar of Northcote parish in Auckland.^[3][4] John Prebble became a Queen's Counsel and professor of law at Victoria University of Wellington, Richard Prebble became a politician, and their younger brother, Mark Prebble, became the senior public servant of New Zealand.^[3]


After a PhD in education administration, completed in 1975 at the University of Alberta in Canada, Prebble was appointed a senior lecturer in the Department of Education at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.^[5][6] In 1986, he became the director of extramural studies at Massey, and in 1999 he was appointed the university's inaugural principal extramural and international.^[7] In 2002, he stood down from his administrative roles at Massey and was appointed to the Department of Social and Policy Studies in Education, retiring in 2004.^[5][6][8] He was promoted to full professor in 1994, and was conferred with the title of professor emeritus on his retirement.^[5][8]


Prebble was involved in establishing Massey's postgraduate programme in educational administration, the first in New Zealand.^[5][6] Between 2008 and 2015, he was a board member and director of Ako Aotearoa, the national centre for tertiary teaching excellence, and he also served on the councils of Otago Polytechnic and UCOL.^[5] He was elected a Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Administration Society in 1994.^[5]


In the 2019 New Zealand Honours, Prebble was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to tertiary education.^[9] He died in Palmerston North on 17 January 2021, aged 75.^[1]