Shafqat Mahmood

He was born on 19 February 1950. Belonging to a Gujjar family, his cousins include Zaka Ashraf, associated with the PPP and who also served as the PCB chairman, as well Chaudhry Jaffar Iqbal Gujjar, a senior PML-N politician. He completed his early education at Sadiq Public School, Bahawalpur, and later studied in the Government College University, Lahore before completing his Masters in Psychology from University of the Punjab in 1970. He received a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University in 1981. His daughter Tara Mahmood is an actress and singer. ==Early career==

He started his career by joining the Pakistan Administrative Service cadre of the civil bureaucracy in 1973. He served as Assistant Commissioner of Murree and Pakpatan from 1975 to 1978. He was then made Deputy Secretary to the Government of the Punjab where he served till 1980. He served as Deputy Commissioner of Gujranwala and Dera Ghazi Khan for five years and also as an Additional Commissioner of the Afghan Refugees Organization for a short time in 1985. He served as Additional Secretary of Finance of the Government of Punjab from 1988 to 1989. Later, he joined the Prime Minister's Secretariat and served as Joint Secretary from 1989 to 1990. ==Political career==

He left the civil service and joined the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1990 to begin his political career. He was elected to the Senate of Pakistan as a candidate of PPP from Islamabad in March 1994. He remained a member of the Senate until March 2000. He became part of the military government setup following the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état and served as Provincial Minister of Punjab for Information from 1999 to 2000. and used to criticize the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its chief Imran Khan. He joined PTI in November 2011 He received 97,933 votes and defeated Khawaja Ahmad Hassan, a candidate of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N). In November 2015, he resigned from the post of PTI organizer in Lahore after the party's poor performance in local government elections held in October 2015. In May 2017, he became central information secretary of PTI. On 18 August, Imran Khan formally announced his federal cabinet structure and Mahmood was named as Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training and Minister for National History and Literary Heritage. On 20 August 2018, he was sworn in as a Federal Minister in the federal cabinet of Prime Minister Imran Khan. On 15 November 2019, he was elected as the President of UNESCO's Education Commission. == Writings ==

He has written numerous articles as well government reports, including Devolving the State: A Model for Empowering the People in 2000. == References ==