Mohsin Zulfiqar

Mohsin Zulfiqar currently co-ordinates the Aimhigher initiative in Leeds, the second largest education authority in England. He has been involved in education since 1970. His first teaching post was at a chemical technology institute in Pakistan. He is also the Director of Leeds Mentoring, an organisation he established in 1992. In his substantive post as the Area Manager of East Leeds for the Learning Communities Team, he works with schools, colleges, universities and other agencies to co-ordinate support for learners and the local communities.

Zulfiqar was born in Lucknow in India in 1948. His family migrated to Karachi in Pakistan in 1955. Most of his early education took place in Karachi. He completed his Masters in Chemistry and taught for nearly two years at Habib Institute of Technology. In 1971, he left Pakistan for Britain and undertook post-graduate research at the University of Nottingham. Afterwards he qualified to teach sciences in secondary schools. However, after completing the post-graduate certificate in education, he worked for the Worker's Educational Association for seven years organising community and adult education provision in Manchester. In 1983, he joined the Manchester College of Arts and Technology as the Head of the Access Studies Unit, and was responsible for organising a range of programmes enabling students from the inner-city communities to progress to higher education.

Zulfiqar joined the Leeds Local Education Authority as one of the Further Education advisers with additional responsibility for race equality issues. In 1993, he became the Co-ordinator of the Multi-Cultural Education Consultancy and Advisory Service as well as the Adviser and Ofsted inspector for Secondary Mathematics, Community Education and Cultural Diversity. In 1998, he became the Head of the Equality, Language and Learning Agency within Education Leeds.

Zulfiqar has extensive experience of teaching and managing educational programmes in secondary, adult, community and further education sectors. One of the training programme on multicultural education he initiated attracted the prestigious Local Authority Race Award in 1997. He has published several articles and books on mentoring, race equality issues, the history of ethnic minority communities in Britain and supplementary schooling.

Zulfiqar has played a prominent role in fight against racism and racial discrimination in Britain and has supported the movement for democracy and social justice in Pakistan. Since 1965, he has been active in a range of community-based organisations in this country as well as in Pakistan. He has been responsible for several projects, initiatives and forums to promote anti-racism and widening participation. He describes himself as 'a political activist working in the field of education'.

He is a keen amateur photographer and has been documenting pictorial history of minority communities in Britain. He is also involved in researching and recording the oral histories of minority communities through interviews and radio programmes.