Ray of hope: The long path to a bright future

Sole female teacher walks 28 kilometres to educate girls at a village school.

ATTOCK:

Female teachers may be even less willing to accept a rural posting than their male counterparts, as it requires a lot of walking to cover the long distances to reach these schools.

However, Mehreen Mushtaq, the only teacher at Government Girls Elementary School Kalli Dilli in Attock, has been covering an exhaustive 28-kilometre round trip a day for the last eight years to reach her school, some eight kilometres off the main road.  She covers the last stretch on foot as there is no public transport to reach the school, which has around 100 students.

Those at the helm of the affairs may not fully appreciate Mushtaq’s dedication, but her commitment has captured the hearts and minds of the students, their parents and the villages, who showed their appreciation for the performance and professionalism of the teacher.

The teacher not only conducts all classes on her own, but also has to look after administrative work, including the upkeep of the institution, which was found to be clean and orderly by The Express Tribune during a recent visit.

Mushtaq said she was performing her duty without any complaints, just to express her love for the profession.

“I never asked the education department officials to depute me to a school near my home as no one is willing to be posted to this school,” she said.

However, she regretted that the education department never offered her any transport facility, given her years of service to the school.

While narrating her achievements, she said that when she was transferred to the school eight years ago, initially, villagers were reluctant to enrol their daughters, but slowly and steadily she motivated them to send their daughters to the school, which yielded results and now the total strength has gone up to 100 students.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said, adding that covering such a long distance on a daily basis was not an easy task. “I do it for the sake of the future of girl students,” Mushtaq says, her eyes lighting up with hope for her students.

Mushtaq said that she and the villagers have brought the issue of staff shortage to the notice of district coordination officer (DCO) and the executive district officer (EDO), but to no avail. None of the high-ups have ever visited the school to resolve the issue.

Attock Education EDO Qazi Zahoor was contacted several times for comment, but he did not answer his cell phone and was not available in his office.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2013.