Office of the Assistant Director-General for Education

Sobhi Tawil (PhD) is Director of the Future of Learning and Innovation team at UNESCO where he currently leads the Futures of Education initiative, as well as work on technology and innovation in education. He has some 30 years of experience in teaching, education policy analysis, research and program management with diverse institutions and organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies (Geneva), as well as the Network for International Policies and Cooperation in Education and Training (NORRAG). He has also worked on issues of education policy in relation to identity-based conflict, social cohesion, and citizenship. Sobhi Tawil holds a PhD in Education and Development from the Graduate Institute for Development Studies in Geneva.

Manos Antoninis is the Director of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report since 2017. He was previously responsible for the monitoring section of the report. He coordinated the financing gap estimates for the 2030 education targets, the projections on the achievement of universal primary and secondary education completion, and the World Inequality Database on Education. He has been representing the report team in the Technical Cooperation Group on SDG 4 indicators, which he is currently co-chairing.  

Prior to joining the team he worked for 10 years on public finance, monitoring and evaluation projects in education including: a public expenditure tracking and service delivery survey of secondary education provision in Bangladesh; the evaluation of a basic education project in the western provinces of China; the mid-term evaluation of the Education For All Fast Track Initiative; the annual reporting of progress in the implementation of the Second Primary Education Development Project in Bangladesh; a basic education capacity building programme in six states in Nigeria; the evaluation of an in-service, cluster-based teacher training programme in Pakistan; and the country study of the Out of School Children Global Initiative in Indonesia. He holds a DPhil in Economics for a study of technical education and the labour market in Egypt, completed at the Centre for the Study of African Economies of the University of Oxford. 

Borhene Chakroun is an engineer and has a PhD in Education Sciences from Bourgogne University in France. Borhene worked, during the 1990s, as trainer, chief trainer, project manager. He has also worked as short-term consultant for the EU, World Bank and other international organisations before coming to the European Training Foundation (ETF) in 2001. At the ETF, Borhene worked as Senior Human Capital Development specialist. He is now Director of Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems Division at UNESCO-HQ. Borhene conducted a range of policy reviews and skills systems diagnosis in different contexts. He has authored and co-authored various articles and books in the field of skills development and lifelong learning. Much of his most recent work focuses on global trends in reforming education and training systems and global agenda for skills development in the context of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. He is also the coordinator of the Global Education Coalition launched by UNESCO to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

Christopher Castle has more than 30 years of development experience in the areas of education and health, working at UNESCO since 2004.  After holding a position at UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning, he transferred to UNESCO Headquarters where he served as Chief of the Section of Health and Education until November 2022, before taking on his current role as Director of the Division for Peace and Sustainable Development. Mr Castle holds a BS in International Studies and French from The American University, and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.

Julie Saito is Chief of the International Coordination unit for UNESCO Associated Schools network (ASPnet) since February 2020.  Prior to the current post, she worked as a programme specialist to mobilize and empower more than 12,000 youth leaders from all regions in the world for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Julie joined UNESCO/Public Information in 2007 as Attaché de Presse for the former Director-General, Koïchiro Matsuura and Media Partnership specialist to promote the World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage. As Tsunami responses for the distressed children who lost families, houses and schools in Japan in 2011, she initiated the Kizuna Campaign to collect more than 30,000 message cards of hope from 60 countries to deliver to the ASPnet schools and co-organized two charity concerts at UNESCO HQs in 2011 and 2012 to collect funds in collaboration with JAPONAID and National Federation for UNESCO Associations in Japan. Before joining UNESCO, she worked as journalist for 20 years, including NBC News and Asahi Shimun. She is a laureate of the Emmy Awards as associate producer of NBC News for the documentary on the preparedness for earthquake in Japan. Julie also studied Musicology/Cultural Anthropology at Hunter College and Piano at Manhattan School of Music in New York, and such experiences convinced her to promote art-education, informal and lifelong learning.