A leading contemporary carries success stories of ordinary people or their unusual achievements under what may be called a shoulder headline or kicker, 'Samoyer Mukh' (face of the time). Yesterday it carried an interview of a mother who has passed this year's Secondary School Certificate examination along with her son. No, she did not achieve the highest grade but her GPA-4.54 is more than the top grade GPA-5.
How? It is the undying spirit she nurtured in her bosom that makes her different from other women. After long 19 years of her dropout from school at the age of only 12 when she got married and had three children, the mother returned to school to continue her study. What an amazing return for a mother! No, she did not appear as a private examinee but as a regular student she got admitted to class IX in 2019 when her son also sought admission to the same class but in a different school.
Her son achieved the top grade GPA-5 to make it an occasion of double delight for the mother from Natore. Herself a ward councillor of a reserve seat of a union, she made the decision partly because her deceased husband wanted her to continue her study after the marriage and partly because she felt lonely at home when he died during the pandemic. All three children were studying and her desire for study was reawakened.
Hers is a success to be celebrated but at the same time it also conversely points to a painful fact. The fact is that many like her with a burning desire are compelled to bury their dreams of a better life as adverse circumstances make them accept child marriage and motherhood earlier than they should. There are instances where girls coming out first in school examinations from primary to the secondary levels were given into marriage bringing an end to their studies. Usually the husbands in such cases are the worst students but because they hail from affluent families in a village they are preferred by the girls' parents as their sons-in-law.
What a waste of women's talent! Well, there is some compensation in such cases. It has been observed that the couple's children most often are meritorious students, most likely because of the mothers. In families with no highly educated members, these children come out in flying colours. These mothers want to realise their unfulfilled dreams through their children and their tutelage acts as a deciding factor in doing so.
This may be a small consolation but it is a gargantuan loss for society and the nation. Had they not become teen mothers, these talented girls could advance far in their lives like the central characters of Samaresh Majumder's novels. Indeed, if mothers are educated, its benefits are reflected in many ways on a family and by extension on society. Contrary to this, the mothers including those who have completed tertiary education, bring their children to coaching centres and gossip together until the coaching class is over present a pathetic picture. They are a happy-go-lucky type, who consider their respective life's journey up to their marriage to a husband earning a fat income.
This again is a waste. The majority of these mothers would not take any responsibility of guiding their children in their studies. But the mothers who knew life's hardship at their parents' homes and which forced them to embrace an early marriage make a monumental sacrifice and yet try to contribute to their families and society by the natural gift they were blessed with. In both cases, society becomes a loser in terms of knowledge creation and economy.
Now it is easy to get information of the remotest corners and media coverage often help bail talented students---both boys and girls---out of the dire straits. But in earlier times such budding talents met with premature reversals. Yet the government efforts to take care of such talents are not enough. Some private organisations have been doing quite an excellent job. It would be desirable that a special government fund is devoted to the cause under an equalitarian, particularly gender equality programme.
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