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Afzalur Rahman Enters Surrey School Board Race With a Student-First Platform
8-25-2026
As Surrey prepares for its October 17, 2026 municipal election, Dr. Afzalur Rahman is putting forward a platform built around a simple proposition: school decisions should begin with the needs of students and families.
Rahman, a business educator and entrepreneur based in the Greater Vancouver area, says he intends to seek a seat on the Surrey Board of Education. Because the formal nomination period does not open until September 1 and closes September 11, his candidacy should at this stage be described as a declared intention rather than a formally certified nomination.
His campaign centres on four priorities: stronger parent voices, stronger schools, practical solutions to Surrey's portable-classroom problem and what he describes as responsible leadership.
The platform comes at a time when Surrey Schools is dealing with several competing pressures: a recent decline in enrolment after more than two decades of growth, reduced per-pupil funding, continuing reliance on portable classrooms and increasing demands for student supports.
Rahman brings an education background to the campaign.
Rahman holds a Doctor of Business Administration in International Business from Argosy University in Tampa, Florida, an MBA from North South University and a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours in Business Administration from the University of Windsor. He also holds Certified International Trade Professional and Chartered Professional in Human Resources designations.
His teaching career has included Douglas College, Thompson Rivers University, the University of British Columbia, Okanagan College and the Shanghai Institute of Technology. His areas of teaching and research have included international business, marketing, entrepreneurship and strategy.
He was a full-time faculty member at Douglas College from August 2017 to August 2024. His professional profile and other institutional sources support a substantial teaching career, although the precise total number of years across all institutions was not independently calculated in the research.
Rahman is also the founder and chief executive officer of Global Conference Alliance Inc., a Vancouver-based organization involved in academic training, conference hosting and event planning. His professional profile lists him as CEO since July 2018.
His campaign materials describe an immigrant journey from Bangladesh to Canada and emphasize education as a vehicle for opportunity, leadership and community development. His professional background consequently sits at the intersection of education, business and international engagement.
But the central question for voters will not simply be what Rahman has accomplished professionally. It will be how that experience translates into the very different responsibilities of a school trustee.
Four Priorities — and the Questions Voters Will Ask
Rahman's first priority is stronger parent voices.
His campaign argues that families should be genuine partners in decisions affecting their children's daily learning environments. In a district as large and diverse as Surrey, that emphasis could have practical significance. The district serves tens of thousands of families from different linguistic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
The second priority is strong schools.
Rahman says he would advocate for permanent, high-quality learning spaces, adequate staffing — including education assistants — and programs that help students reach their potential.
That position places him directly in one of Surrey's most persistent policy debates: how quickly temporary classrooms can be replaced by permanent facilities and how the district should prioritize limited operating resources.
His third priority is practical action on portable classrooms.
Rahman argues that portables should remain temporary rather than becoming a permanent feature of children's education. He wants capital funding to prioritize permanent classrooms and says the district should address the financial and spatial costs associated with empty or misplaced portable units.
The issue is not theoretical. Surrey had 353 portables in use as of September 2025, while 45 empty units remained in place because relocating them cost more than $100,000 each from the operating budget.
There is already some overlap between Rahman's position and the existing board's approach. The board has asked the provincial government to take responsibility for removing the empty portables, and Rahman's call for greater capital attention echoes the board's broader argument that permanent infrastructure and portable removal require provincial action.
The fourth priority is responsible leadership.
Rahman says trustees should ask difficult questions about resource allocation and ensure public dollars reflect public priorities, with student outcomes taking precedence over administrative metrics alone.
That principle could become particularly relevant as Surrey navigates its changing financial picture.
The district experienced an approximately $17 million reduction in per-pupil funding following the recent enrolment decline, but it also reported a $33 million surplus and has been rebuilding reserves.
Rahman's campaign materials do not yet provide detailed, costed proposals explaining exactly how he would balance reserve levels, classroom spending, special-needs support, staffing and capital advocacy. That is one of the areas voters will likely want clarified as the campaign develops.
The same applies to his portable-classroom proposals. The objective is clear, but the precise mechanisms — including what should be funded locally and what should be sought from the province — remain to be detailed.
That distinction is important because trustees do not control provincial capital funding. Their role is to govern the district, approve operating priorities and advocate collectively for capital projects and other provincial decisions.
For Surrey's Muslim, South Asian and immigrant communities, Rahman's candidacy also carries a question of representation.
The district's student population includes families speaking more than 198 languages, with Punjabi, Mandarin, Hindi, Tagalog and Arabic among the most common home languages. That diversity makes communication between schools, trustees and parents an important part of effective governance.
Rahman's immigrant background and experience as an educator may resonate with families who see education as central to building opportunity for the next generation. But representation alone cannot substitute for policy.
The ultimate test for any trustee candidate will be whether he or she can understand the district's finances, work within the legal and administrative limits of the board, advocate effectively to the province and make difficult collective decisions.
Rahman enters the race with a professional background that gives him experience in teaching, business and organizational leadership. His campaign is built around parents, permanent classrooms, student supports and financial accountability.
What remains to be seen is how those principles will translate into specific votes and policies if he wins a seat.
The formal campaign has not yet begun in full. The nomination period opens September 1, the candidate field will be established after September 11, and Surrey voters will ultimately choose six trustees on October 17.
For now, Rahman's campaign offers voters a clear starting point: a prospective trustee presenting himself as an educator first, a community member second and a candidate focused on putting students at the centre of school-board decisions.
The next stage will be turning that message into measurable commitments — and allowing Surrey voters to judge whether those commitments offer the right answers for a changing school district.
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