Subramaniyan Venkatraman

Dr. S. Venkatraman has an M.A. and MPhil from University of Madras, MPhil from Cambridge University, UK and PhD from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK. He is trained in development studies and has worked extensively in the field of Social Research, Development Economics, ICT for development, Education Policy Research, Education Sector Planning and Management, Skill Assessment, Monitoring & Evaluation, Sustainable Development and and Culture studies.

He has been working as Senior Consultant to various UNESCO offices including UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, UNESCO regional office for the Asia Pacific in Bangkok, UNESCO regional office for the Arab region in Beirut, UNESCO Office in Vietnam and UNESCO Cluster office in New Delhi. Earlier, he was on the staff of UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in Montreal, UNESCO Regional Office for the Asia Pacific in Bangkok and UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa in Nairobi. As part of his work with UNESCO, he has worked with governments across Asia Pacific, Africa and Arab regions of the world. He also works as International Consultant to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) mainly in Human Capital Development projects of ADB in the Asia Pacific region.

Some of his recent work (2018-2020) include: i. Producing policy and assessment frameworks for measuring Citizenship Education, Education for Sustainable Development and Peace Education for countries in the Asia Pacific region such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Mongolia and Thailand through UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok ii. Conducting Literacy assessment of Syrian Refugee Youth in Lebanon for UNESCO; iii. Assessment of M&E and data quality issues of Education sector in Sri Lanka for ADB; iv. Capacity building for preparation of national reviews on the status of progress made in Sustainable Development Goal 4 (education) in the Arab region for UNESCO; v. Third party assessment of Human Capital Development Project funded by ADB in Meghalaya, India; vi. Expert member of the SDG4 regional review team on 5 year progress in the Asia Pacific region organized by UNESCO Regional Office for Asia Pacific and UNICEF Regional Office (EAPRO) in Bangkok. He also acts as advisor/consultant to Corporates, NGOs, and academic institutions in India. He is regularly consulted by leading institutions and associations such as CII (Confederation of Indian Industries), IIM (Indian Institute of Management) Kozhikode, MCCI (Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industries) and INGOs/NGOs in India. He is associated as a technical advisor on data and monitoring to ‘SDG Watch” a NGO network comprising several NGOs from Southern India working on monitoring and producing evidence based policy recommendations on SDGs specifically on SDGs 1,2,3, 4, 5, 8 and 16.

COVID-19 related (2020): Dr. Venkat has been working with INGOs, NGOs in India in assessing the impact of COVID crisis on school children during lockdown and how to collect data on the learning during lockdown period especially in rural and remote tribal areas and among marginalized and vulnerable groups in India. Also, working with the industry through chamber of commerce and industry association on the how industry can contribute to education and health especially among the disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. He is active conducting webinars and taking part in discussion with higher education institutions, schools network and universities on how to plan for reopening of educational institutions post-lockdown phase in India.