Silvia Montoya

Dr. Silvia Montoya is the Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Montoya has extensive experience in a wide range of national and international initiatives to improve the quality, management and use of education statistics, with a specific focus on learning assessment. Since 2012, Montoya has been the Director-General of Assessment and Evaluation of Education Quality at the Ministry of Education, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr Montoya was appointed as the first Executive Director of the Unidad de Evaluación Integral de la Calidad Educativain 2015.

Among her many responsibilities, she oversaw the creation of the first comprehensive education quality index produced in Argentina. During the course of her career at the Ministry of Education of Argentina, which dates back to the late 1990s, she introduced a series of institutional changes and capacity-building initiatives to strengthen independence and objectivity in the production of education statistics and the measurement of learning outcomes.

Montoya has also coordinated Argentina’s participation in several international assessment programs, including: the Latin American Program of Educational Quality of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI); IEA’s International Computer and Information Literacy Study; the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study; Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study; Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study; and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies.

Montoya is also professor and researcher at the Catholic University of Argentina. She holds a Master’s and PhD in Policy Analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Montoya is the author of many publications on education, vocational training and labour market issues. She has extensive experience as a researcher and consultant for major national and global organizations.