Ramanathan Sivakumar (Commonly called as Siva)

In my dual role i.e. (i) as Director of EMPOWER Overseas Education Consultants in Chennai and (ii) as Regional Adviser of TIETAC – The International Education and Training Advisory Centre, Chennai with its Registered Office in New Delhi, I am helping many young and deserving Indian students to pursue their higher studies in Overseas countries, especially United Kingdom by providing educational counseling and advice.  Extremely happy to have helped a number of Sri Lankan Tamil Refugee students residing in Tamil Nadu in their efforts to have good education and training in the United Kingdom.

Assisting Chief Adviser, TIETAC in facilitating academic partnerships between select UK Universities and Indian institutions.

Strongly believe in adding a lot of value to my job and adding value to the lives of students, whom I interact with and counsel.

With a view to doing something new and consolidating what I have been doing in terms of provision of proactive information, I started to contribute to my own Blog website.

Life Member of:

• Madras Library Association (MALA);
• Association of British Scholars (ABS); and
• Association of Accredited Advisers of Overseas Education (AAAOE)

Educational Background:

1969 – 1972: Bachelor of Science (Physics):  Annamalai University, India

1974 – 1975 : Bachelor of Library and Information Science: University of Madras, India

Consultancy Experience:

Since 2003: Regional Adviser, The International Education and Training Advisory Centre (TIETAC), Chennai, India.

From 2008 onwards: Director, EMPOWER Overseas Education Consultants (EOEC), Chennai, India.

Employment History:

Project Co-ordinator (South India), British Council Library, Chennai (2002 – 2003)

Coordinated major projects relating to improving the design and development of facilities for the British Council Libraries in South India.  These projects range from shifting of existing library to new premises (at Bangalore), to a project aimed at introducing a major and visible change to the quality of the British Council India Library operations, in particular Information Services.  The latter project used the best online and offline resources in the United Kingdom.

Manager, Library & Information Services, (South India) British Council Library, Chennai (1997 – 2002)

Managed the Library in Chennai (budget of Pounds Sterling 300,000) with a resource of twenty teammates. Key responsibilities were to implement policy through management decisions to increase the efficiency and improvements in the level of customer service by use of tools such as Focus group discussions, Orientation programmes, Feedback systems, Suggestions Box, Management by Wandering Around (MBWA), etc.  As a result, successfully achieved the following results:

• Customer friendly layout by effective utilization of space
• Improved facilities through focused stock of books and periodicals
• Targeted information services using offline and online products
• Creating quality improvements by Branding dedicated resources

Responsible for managing information & reference service using predominantly offline resources. As a Manager and a member of the Senior Management Team, I have been a participant and a Resource person on several in-house training programmes both in India and in the UK.

Manager, Education Counselling Service (South India), British Council Library, Chennai (1993 – 1997)

Designed and Managed the first one-stop shop at the Chennai Library to promote British education in South India, after identifying and establishing the demand for British education through the education information provision project (1989 – 1993).

The systems and processes incorporated in delivering the project included, amongst others, the Enquiry response system, Enquiry management system, Institutional profile, City profile, Process flow diagram, Management Information System, Referral system, etc.  The introduction of these systems not only aided the processes but also improved efficiency and effectiveness of staff and consequently higher customer satisfaction.

Beginning with the first British Education Fair in India in November 1994, I have managed both small and large events to promote UK education in India.  What began as a Fair in one city – Chennai, soon became an annual affair, extended to cover other cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore.  I have successfully managed 16 of these events, attended by over 30,000 visitors.

Another high-profile event in which I played a major role was the International seminar on educational partnership, hosted jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry, UK; British High Commission, New Delhi and the British Council Division, Chennai.  The seminar resulted in a number of successful partnerships between UK and South India.  The British Open University consolidated its links with the Academy for Management Excellence (ACME) in Chennai.

Education Information Officer, British Council Library, Chennai (1989 – 1993)

Responsible for raising awareness of British Education in South India through a pilot project.

Assistant Librarian, British Council Library, Chennai (1977 – 1989)

Prior to joining the British Council Library in Feb 1977, worked as Technical Assistant for 18 months at University of Madras Library.