Welcome to the second edition of our Teacher Talks series where we meet first generation learners who share their stories of their own education and of teaching in centres for informal education.
In Episode 1, Wahida shares her journey to the classroom first as a student and then as a teacher.
Wahida was in Class 9 when she got married. She wrote her Class 10 exams in the ninth month of her first pregnancy and passed. Three years, two babies and a lifetime later, one morning she was overcome by longing for the classroom when she saw children on their way to school. How she managed to enroll in college after that is a story in itself, a story she narrates with great aplomb in this video.
Wahida is a teacher today at the Girl Child Learning Centres run by the NGO FACE in Pakur, Jharkhand. When discussing her second innings at learning, she compares the drop out rates in government schools and the informal education centres. She believes strongly that intense mobilization is the only way to push the community to send their daughters to the centre. Wahida’s classroom is one of the 40 centres run by FACE in the state of Jharkhand, reaching informal education to 1200 girls in all. These centres teach girls till class 5.
It was a childhood dream to become a teacher, says Wahida. Watch this video to hear about the long and complicated road to Wahida’s dream of getting every girl an education.
