Shahnaz Wazir Ali has an illustrious career as an educationist, development policy specialist, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party twice elected to National Assembly of Pakistan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Sector and as a well known women’s right activist. She served as a Senior Education Specialist on the World Bank; held the position of Minister of State for Education, Govt. of Pakistan; and is on the Board of a number of prestigious national and international organizations, trusts, advisory councils, educational boards, and universities including SZABIST.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali has represented Pakistan at international conferences and as a highly valued speaker for national seminars, forums, conferences on education, health, womens’ development, population, and poverty alleviation. She has been a champion of numerous social causes such as education for all, women’s rights, Polio eradication in Pakistan.
Currently she is Provincial Coordinator for the Government of Sindh for all primary health care programs including maternal and child health and Family Planning Programs. She is also the President of the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Sciences and Technology. It’s a university with four Campuses in different cities of Pakistan and 1 Campus in Dubai. SZABIST has a student enrollment of 6500 students. These two positions reflect her deep, abiding and long term commitment to Health & Education.
As a social activist dedicated to the cause of advancy women’s right along with human rights & women rights activist in the early 1980’s she was in van guard of the women’s rights movement in Pakistan that fought against the 11 year long dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq. 1986 She joined the Pakistan People’s Party led by the martyred Benazir Bhutto (twice Prime Minister of Pakistan) and was elected twice to the National Parliament of Pakistan.
From 1988 to 1990, 1993 to 1996 and 2008-13 she had the unique opportunity to serve in key decision making positions in government, in the first term as Member of the National Assembly elected on the reserved seat for women and Federal Minister of State for Education and subsequently, in the second and third term, as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Sectors. From 1997-2001, she served as the Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank in Islamabad. Her career in and commitment to education can be traced back to 1965, when she commenced teaching primary school children of deprived communities in Karachi, and subsequently spent about 15 years in teaching and administrative positions in the private sector, which included being Principal at the Lahore American School. She is also a Trustee of the Education Trust which runs Nasra Schools for children of low-income families in Karachi and provides K10 education to more than 10,000 students.
From 1997-2001, she served as the Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank in Islamabad. Her principal assignment was to provide policy, program and technical advice and assistance to the Federal and the 4 Provincial governments to facilitate the implementation of the countrywide Education Sector Social Action Program (SAP). It was in this period of her career that she was very actively involved in the planning for transforming the concept of an institutionalized National Education Assessment System (NEAS) within the Ministry of Education into a reality, for monitoring and improving the quality of education in Pakistan.
Ms. Wazir Ali holds a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Arkansas, USA and also a Master’s Degree in Education Administration from Trenton College, New Jersey, USA. In addition, she has a Diploma in Principal’s Certification from Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. Her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication is from the American University, Washington, D.C. All her basic schooling has been in Pakistani schools in Rawalpindi and Karachi.
