Dr Qian Tang was born in Beijing, China. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education from Shanxi University, Shanxi, China in 1976.  He then taught at high school level for two years before moving to Canada for graduate studies. Mr Tang studied from 1979 to 1985 with a Chinese Government Scholarship at the University of Windsor, Canada, where he earned a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology and became a Doctor of Philosophy in Biology. 

Upon completion of his graduate studies, Dr Tang began work at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa, Canada. There he was Second and then First Secretary for Academic/Educational Affairs from 1985 to 1989.  His major responsibility was to promote bilateral cooperation between Chinese and Canadian universities.

After that he returned to China and worked at the Ministry of Education in Beijing from 1989 to 1992. There he was Director of the Division of Policy, Planning and Coordination in the Department of Vocational and Technical Education and then Assistant Director-General of the Department. In that capacity, he was responsible for the planning and national policy formulation of technical and vocational education system in China. In 1992 he became Deputy Director-General, Bureau of Science and Technology of Shaanxi Provincial Government in Xi’an, China.

Dr Tang joined UNESCO as Senior Programme Specialist, Section for Technical and Vocational Education, Education Sector in 1993.  He became Chief of the Section in 1996. His responsibility in this position included overall coordination of the implementation of UNESCO’s International Project of Technical and Vocational Education (UNEVOC) and organisation of the Second International Congress on Technical and Vocational Education held in Seoul in April 1999. 

He served as Secretary-General of that event. In 2000, he was appointed as Director, Division of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education.  In that position, he was responsible for the implementation of UNESCO’s programme activities in general secondary education, science/technology education as well as technical/vocational education.  From July 2001 to June 2005, Dr Tang was Director of Executive Office for the Education Sector. From July 2005 until his present appointment Dr Tang was UNESCO's Deputy Assistant Director-General for Education responsible for overall coordination of the Education Sector's strategic planning, programme implementation, finance and budgeting as well as human resource management.

Dr Tang was appointed Assistant Director-General for Education in April 2010.