Jake Grout-Smith

Consultant and Project Manager

Jake Grout-Smith provides consulting, research, project management and coordination for EfC, principally in the areas of education and education development, but also across cultural heritage and lifelong learning projects.

Jake has been working in the fields of education, gender and development for the past six years. He began his career in Oxfam providing research and policy support on gender and basic social services across both the humanitarian and development sectors, with a particular focus on enhancing male involvement in the promotion of gender equality. In 2006 Jake moved to VSO where he supported and led the development and management of teacher training, school leadership and education governance programmes across primary, secondary, tertiary and non-formal education sectors in Ethiopia and then in Papua New Guinea. Jake subsequently became a consultant for the Social Development Department of ODI, providing research and analysis on a number of projects around early childhood education and care, child and women’s rights and maternal and child health, before joining EfC in 2011. His particular areas of interest and expertise lie in educational decentralisation and capacity-building, school leadership, teacher training and inclusion, gender and human-rights based approaches.