Mr. Md. Rafiqul Islam was born on January 17, 1949 in a respectable Muslim family of Naogaon. He was a Secretary to the Govt. in the Ministry of Shipping in February 2005. He was engaged in formulation, implementation and monitoring the policies and development programs regarding inland water transportation, Port and Maritime transport system He was Secretary in-charge in the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education of the Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh. During his 30 years long career in the Government Service he served in different positions in Ministry of Education, Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Ministry of Establishment, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Communication. He achieved diversified experience during his career in the Government Service.

Mr. Md. Rafiqul Islam passed M.A (Economics) in 1970 from the University of Chittagong. He also completed Post-Graduation Diploma in Personnel Management, in 1995, from the University of Manchester and Certificate Courses in Health Economics, from the University of York, UK, Certificate Course on Project Management, AIT Bangkok, and Human Resource Management in Public Sector, Institute of Public Administration, and Malaysia etc.
He started his Profession in the year 1974 in Bangladesh Civil Service (Administration). During his service, he participated in various local and international training, seminar, workshop, meeting and conferences. Among those notables are (a) Seminar on Education and Training of Rural Youth, Japan, (b) Ministerial Conference on Industry-Institution Linkage, South Korean National University, (c) Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum workshop, Sri Lanka, (d) Regional Study Visit program on Primary Education, China, (e) Environmental Education Processes in Formal Education , Sweden & India (f) Tripartite Intercessional meeting of World Maritime Convergence, Switzerland etc.

Mr. Rafiqul Islam was a Governor of the World Maritime University, Malmo, Sweden during 2005-2006. He represented Bangladesh in International Maritime Organization(IMO) general assembly and as member of the executive council. He was member in Senate and Syndicate of Rajshahi University, Syndicate Member of National University. He was also Independent Director of Federal Insurance Company Ltd., Sinobangla Industries Ltd. and Jamuna Bank Ltd.