A 12-year-old girl from Amta in West Bengal’s Howrah is set to appear for the Class 10 examinations. Despite not ever receiving a formal education, Saifa Khatun fluently reads English and Bengali.
And now, according to a report in Bengali newspaper Anandabazar Patrika, little Saifa is set to appear in the 2019 Board examinations. The Chairman of West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Kalyanmoy Gangopadhyay made the announcement on Friday. Though Saifa has never been enrolled in any school, she will appear as for the examination as an external student for AAS High School in Howrah’s Salkiya.
Saifa is the daughter of a local doctor, Sheikh Mohammad Ainul. According to the doctor, Saifa had shown early signs of proficiency and academic brilliance. He said he had been sure that Saifa would go on to be a young achiever. The reason why Saifa never went to school was that she was always too ahead of her classmates. She could not get admission to the desired grade as she was too young.
By age 7, the little genius had finished studying the books from cover to cover. Now began the struggle to get her to appear for the Class 10 Board examinations.
Mohammad Ainul said that his and Saifa’s dreams came true on Friday when he got a call from the Board, informing him that Saifa had performed well in the pre-tests that she had been allowed to previously take. This meant she can now apply to the final examination.
The fact that she has never gone to school does not worry Saifa. The little girl told Anandabazar that even greats like Rabindranath Tagore and Ashapurna Devi were homeschooled and never went to school. “Are they uneducated?”, she asked. The 12-year-old not only plans to appear for the exam but also wants to top the results.