Devoted educator: K-P govt confers first Best Principal award

Swabi head bags top honours for student, school performance.

PESHAWAR: In appreciation of his efforts in the field of education, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has awarded Rs50,000 to Sherinzada Khadokhel, the principal of Government  Higher Secondary School Swabi.

Sherinzada has also been honoured with an award for Best Principal, 2014. This is the first time a principal has been presented with the award in the province.

Under his supervision, students of the school were able to clinch top positions in the secondary school certificate (SSC) science examination from Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Mardan in 2014.



Sherinzada is said to have not only helped his students perform well in the exams but during his service, also worked and succeeded on improving the standard of his school.

According to the principal, when he was transferred to the school in 2013 it was in a dire straits; the school had only six teachers back then while grades nine and 10 had been discontinued due to a dearth of teachers.  A dedicated educator, Sherinzada collected Rs0.7 million from students, politicians and social workers and spent the entire amount on the development of the school.

After all his endeavours, he says, currently 750 students are enrolled at the school and 17 teachers work there. He worked towards and succeeded in resuming classes for ninth and 10th grades in May of 2014, upgrading the institute into a higher secondary school where 11th and 12th grades were also started.

His success, he says, comes from hard work which he embraces. “I’m the first among all the staff to reach school and the last one to leave.”



Early days

However, a career in education was not what this educator imagined at the onset.

He was part of the janitorial staff at Adamjee Textile Mills in Karachi in 1983. It was the same year as his SSC exams which he sat for in a school in his native village Khadokhel in Buner district and successfully passed. Soaring through this milestone, Sherinzada says, he was encouraged to study further. And so he enrolled as a private candidate and obtained a masters’ degrees in Urdu and Pashto over the next few years.

In 1984 he was appointed as a junior clerk at Government Degree College Swabi and in 1988 he passed a specialist exam in Urdu and was appointed as a teacher for the subject in Government High School Totalai, Buner.

There was no stopping Sherinzada after that point.

Eventually he joined Government High School Khadokhel, Buner in 2010. Later, on the basis of his performance he was appointed to the post of principal in Government Higher Secondary School Ghazikot.

It was his impressive portfolio as an educator that led MPA Babar Saleem to transfer him to Government High School Swabi as the institute was in need of someone to steer it towards academic success.

Alternative to private education

He told The Express Tribune that people have negative opinions when it comes to government schools. “People are reluctant to let their children study in these schools because a large number of teachers there are not well-qualified”. Sherinzada added, “These schools can improve if heads work hard and motivate others to do the same and create a better image of their schools.”

Sherinzada has also written 20 books in Pashto and Urdu and has received many awards. He says it makes him proud when he sees his students appointed at high posts.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2015.