Ahsan Iqbal

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Ahsan Iqbal (born September 28, 1958 in Lahore) is the current Minister for Education, with additional portfolio for Minorities.^[1] He is also the information secretary of the center-right party PML-N. He was elected as an MNA from his constituency NA-117 (Narowal-III) in the February 2008 elections.^[2] He is serving as a minister in the coalition government of PPP, PML-N, ANP and JUI-F formed after 2008 elections.^[3]

Ahsan Iqbal, son of Iqbal Ahmed, was born in Lahore in 1958. He did his high school from PAF Public School, Sargodha and GC College, Lahore. He then did mechanical engineering from UET Lahore (1976-1981), where he was elected President of Students Union (1980-81) before moving to Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania for postgraduate studies (1984-1986). He has also attended various executive programs at world's prestigious universities ranging from School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (1989), University of Oxford (1992) to Harvard University (2004).

His political career started in 1980 when he joined the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, at UET Lahore. It was in 1988 when he joined PML-N (it was called IJI then), and steadily rose be its information secretary during the regime of General Pervez Musharraf. He was elected for the first time as an MNA from his constituency NA-90 (Narowal) in the General Elections of 1993, and later from the same constituency in February 1997. He won his seat again in 2008, after losing in 2002, from his native district of Narowal.

His previous appointments include Chief Coordinator / Minister of State, Pakistan 2010 Program (1997-99), Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission (1998-99); Chairman, Good Governance Group, Government of Pakistan (1997-99); Chairman, Pakistan Engineering Board, and Chairman, National Steering Committees on Information Technology and IQM and Productivity (1998-99). He earlier served as Policy and Public Affairs Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan (1993). He served as Senior Advisor, Al-Madinah Al-Monawarah Digital Economy Project from September 2004 to April 2006. He has also held senior level corporate positions in major public sector corporations of Pakistan.