Dr Jin Yang is currently a Senior Programme Specialist at the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in Hamburg, Germany. He carries out research on lifelong learning policies and strategies, provides technical assistance for establishing lifelong learning systems in UNESCO Member States, and has facilitated the development of UIL’s initiative on learning cities. This initiative in working with a specialist group to create the International Platform for Learning Cities by the UIL, was successfully launched at the 21-23 October 2013 Beijing International Conference on Learning Cities (Lifelong Learning for All: Inclusion, Prosperity and Sustainability in Cities).

Instrumental in ensuring the special issue on “Learning Cities” for the International Review of Education recently came about as co-editor with Professor Michael Osborne and Peter Kearns OAM, Yang timed publication to coincide with the Cities Learning Together Conference for copies in English and Mandarin.  He has supported the statement that “creating a global network to mobilise cities and demonstrate how to use their resources effectively in every sector to develop and enrich all their human potential to foster lifelong learning personal growth, the development of equality and social justice, the maintenance of harmonious social cohesion, and the creation of sustainable prosperity” as analogous to the value of Cities Learning Together.

Before joining UIL in 2008, Yang had more than 20 years of experiences in the Ministry of Education of China where served as the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Basic Education and National Coordinator of Education for All (EFA) from 2004 to 2008, and before that, Director of Division of Teaching and Learning Support, Department of Vocational and Adult Education from 1998 to 2004. Over the years, he played an active role in the development and implementation of national policies/programmes in the fields of early childhood care and education, primary and secondary education, technical and vocational education as well as adult literacy in China.

Mr Yang received a BSc degree in engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University in China, MEd in comparative education and PhD in economics of education at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.