Dr Joseph Dunning

Dr Joseph Dunning, who has died aged 91, was a visionary educationist and a driving force behind far-reaching improvements in Scottish education in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

In 1963, he was the first principal of Edinburgh's Napier Technical College and presided over its elevation to Napier College of Science and Technology, adding two extra campuses.

There he remained until 1981, pressing his vision that it could grow from a technical institution into a major force in Scottish higher education. Although he retired in the 1980s, he watched his "baby" become the world-recognised Edinburgh Napier University in the 1990s, something he remains recognised for at the university to this day.

Referred to as Joe, while at Napier he also became known in Scotland for his general contribution to restructuring secondary school education. The 1977 Dunning Report, officially titled Assessment for All and still quoted widely, was a landmark in the development of Scottish education. Before it was politically correct to do so, his report insisted that every Scottish schoolchild should have the right to leave school showing positive achievement and the possibility of further education. It recommended that all pupils be given the opportunity to take courses leading to the Scottish Certificate of Education and that both examinations and internal teachers' assessments be involved in pupils' future.

He and fellow-educationist James Munn (later Sir James Munn) were probably the most influential hands-on educational theorists in Scotland during the latter third of the 20th century. They helped Scottish education become recognised as an example to follow, not only south of the Border but worldwide. The Dunning and Munn reports (both published in 1977 for the Scottish Education Department) led to the introduction of a new curriculum for 14 to 16-year-olds and Standard Grade examinations.

According to Professor William Turmeau, who followed Dr Dunning as Principal of Napier in 1982: "Joseph Dunning was a rather special person. He built Napier up from a local college to help it become what it is today."

An only child, he was born in 1920 in Dukinfield on the Cheshire-Lancashire border. His father was a mechanic, his mother the owner of haberdashery where Joseph used to help her out. As the Great Depression spread, he left school at 14 and got a job in a local iron and steel foundry, called The National, to help put food on the family table.

But, perhaps with the vision that would guide him to his later vocation, he refused to be denied an education and attended night school. "He worked hard but was always sociable and, despite the hardships and storm clouds of the 1930s, still found time to have fun," according to his son and daughter, John and Liz. "He played serious cricket at an amateur level – a left-arm spin bowler – became interested in photography, performed in a local amateur dramatic society and was an active member of the Scouting Association, where he began his life-long love for the Lake District."

With there being a shortage of teachers after the war, he taught metallurgy in Rotherham and Wolverhampton before being appointed principal of Cleveland Technical College. He was still only 35, possibly the youngest college principal in the UK at that time.

He studied for and achieved a BSc from London University, followed by a Masters in Education from Durham University. Realising what education could mean, he knew he had found his vocation. While at Napier, he travelled extensively, including behind the Berlin Wall during the Cold War, and to Hong Kong, the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, following cricket.

After retirement in Edinburgh in the mid-1980s, he became chairman of Lothian Health Board.

He followed his dream of moving to the Lake District, where he led a gentler life. He settled in the red sandstone village of Great Salkeld, outside Penrith, down the M6 from Gretna and Carlisle, where he had time to indulge his passions for fell-walking and creating woodwork.

For his grandchildren, he created dolls' houses, farmyards, a sailing boat and a Bugatti classic car in the original blue, powered by the motor of a real car's windscreen-wiper mechanism. The paint from that little car, built in his kitchen, might have upset his wife but a compromise was reached. They re-painted the kitchen blue. For his local church, he helped build an electric organ. "Bricklaying, plumbing, glazing, his trademark was never to finish one project without starting the next," his children said.

Dr Dunning was named a CBE in 1977 but his proudest moment was when Napier was formally inaugurated as a university in 1992. He died in Penrith Hospital after a short illness. His first wife Edith (née Barlow), whom he married in 1950, died in 1972. He is survived by his second wife Eileen (née Murdoch), whom he married in 1992, and by his children from his first marriage, Elizabeth and John, and grandchildren Matthew, Adam, Miriam, Charlotte, Nathan and Jonathan.