Professor Rupert Maclean: Currently QAPCO Professional Chair in Vocational Studies, and concurrently UNESCO Chair on TVET and Sustainable Development, College of the North Atlantic – Qatar. Previously Chair Professor of International Education, UNESCO Chair in TVET and Lifelong Learning, and Director of the Centre for International Education and Lifelong Learning, at the Education University of Hong Kong. Has published books, articles and book chapters, and given numerous keynote presentations worldwide, on the areas of TVET and education for sustainable development. Has occupied honorary academic positions at universities in Oxford, Melbourne and Shanghai. Worked for almost 20 years with UNESCO, with postings in Yangon, Bangkok and Paris before becoming foundation Director of the UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Bonn, Germany. Awarded Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for Australia in 211, ‘for distinguished service to TVET, particularly through UNESCO’.
Ms Shanti Jagannathan: Currently Senior Education Specialist in the South Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank, Manila. She led a regional policy research study on Asia's Knowledge Economies: the Next Policy Agenda and a study on Education and Skills for Inclusive Growth and Green Jobs. She was also the Convener of the ADB International Skills Forum in a 4-year series from 2011 to 2014. She works on education policy and strategy for improving the quality, cost-efficiency and labor market relevance of skills development in ADB's developing member countries. She represented the ADB in the Inter Agency Working Group on Greening TVET and Skills Development convened by UNESCO-UNEVOC. Prior to joining the ADB, she worked with the European Union as Development Adviser on education reform programs in South Asia and on gender issues, democracy and human rights and poverty alleviation. She has published seminar papers, edited conference volumes, published in the World Bank Policy Research series. Two recent publications by Springer that she co-edited are: Skills Development for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth in Developing Asia-Pacific and a special issue of Prospects (Volume 44), a Quarterly Review of Comparative Education. Mr Brajesh Panth: Currently the Technical Advisor for Education at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He provides technical leadership to the education sector group (ESG) in ADB, leads the preparation of the ESG work plan and facilitates collaboration across sector and technical groups in ADB. He has over 25 years of experience in the education sector including sector assessment, project processing, implementation, evaluation, and policy dialogue, covering all levels—primary, secondary, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and higher education. He holds a doctorate in education administration, planning and social policy from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. He worked with the World Bank as senior education specialist before joining ADB in 2001. He has worked in Central Asia, South Asia, China, Ghana, Malawi and the United States. Besides coordinating several publications in ADB, Mr. Panth has made several presentations in different fora and contributed to policy analysis, policy dialogue and analytical work pertaining to his experience in sector wide approaches, basic and secondary education, TVET, higher education, decentralized social services, education reform, results based financing and monitoring, development partner cooperation, and regional cooperation.
