Meet Razia Maqbool - The Teacher From A Village In Kashmir Who's Showing The Valley's Kids The Way Forward

Three kilometres from the main town of Budgam lies a mountainous village situated right in the middle of apple orchids, waterfalls and paddy fields. It's green everywhere and a teeny tiny mud road leads the way into the village. Following the same path we reach the only middle school of the village. It’s one o’ clock and the school has no children. It’s their exam time, we are told.

In a peach pink suit, with a slight shimmer and a maroon scarf Razia Maqbool, 33, a fragile-looking girl with an iron will, sits in a room devoid of furniture with large windows. Fresh air seeps in and the shade of the trees around makes the room cooler on a hot sunny day.

Baseera Rafiqi

She has been teaching in the Government Middle Boys School Lakhripora for the past six years. She was a student in the same school before she went on to teach here. 

"My journey, well there is nothing peculiar about it. I wanted to learn and the urge made me cross every hurdle that came in my way. I studied here in this school until class five. My primary education was until class 5th. There was no middle school around so I had to go to Budgam Middle school,” says Razia. 

As the school had no road-link, Razia had to go to school on foot. It was an hour’s journey both ways.

“I walked in snow, rain, nothing could stop me from going to school. Sometimes my parents would ask me to stay back but I listened to none. For me school was the most important thing of my life, it still is,” she added.

Baseera Rafiqi

After completing her secondary education, she didn’t follow the rest of her batchmates and leave her studies. Her parents were an exception, they were educated and hence wanted their daughter to get her share of knowledge come what may.

“Joining college would mean more walking, travelling back and forth which was going to take a lot of time but I settled on taking that kind of load to fulfill my dream. I am the first girl from this village to join the Women College Srinagar, it was a very big thing at that time,” Razia said.

People are proud of her as she is the first female graduate from this village. Her thirst for knowledge didn’t end there. She went to Kashmir University for her Post-graduation in Urdu followed by a degree in teaching (B.ed).

With the number of years passing by, the number of degrees kept on increasing. It made both Razia and her parents happy.

Baseera Rafiqi

She has been teaching in middle school for six years now. She was appointed as an Rehbar-e-Taleem teacher (ReT) and last year she was added as regular faculty. She tries her best to help the local kids and encourages them to come to school. And most of them do come.

“We mostly have girls in the school, some of them are very sharp but others, we have to put extra effort to make them understand things. The reason being that most of the students come from illiterate, poor, agricultural families. What they learn in school they don’t even revise at home, they prefer helping their parents in house hold chores and that is the reason they fail to improve,” she added.

Razia fought her way out but most of the girls in district Budgam don’t have access to schools or education.

BCCL

Budgam had a female literacy rate of 30.29 percent according to the 2001 and in 2011 census report, the percentage reached 44.85, which is still less than the states average female literacy rate which is 56.43 percent.

There are a number of reasons that hold females back from school. First there are no separate schools for girls. They have to attend the boys schools, and the number of higher secondary colleges is very meager. Most of the students have to travel long distances to reach school, so female students prefer to get their basic education from the schools in vicinity which is till primary or middle, which leaves a huge percentage of drop outs in the district.

The Chief Education Officer of Budgam says that a fact-finding committee has been setup to look into the matter which will come with its report within a month.

“We have primary and middle schools available but for higher education we are trying to work out plans to improve the numbers. But girls from these rural and remote areas give preference to their agricultural and household chores than education, which is the primary reason according to me,” says Inderjeet Sharma, CEO Budgam.

“But there has been some change over the years and I am hopeful that after the findings of the report we will be able to identify the loop holes and address them as soon as possible,” he added.

Baseera Rafiqi

Locals believe that if a proper road link, transport and schools are allotted to the area the literacy rate will increase for sure.

Talking about the future of the whole education scenario in Lakhripora, Razia says, “I think that day is still very far. To achieve absolute literacy, people need to send their kids to school, pay attention to their studies, give their education first preference. Here girls don’t have a will to study. Unless and until this mindset is changed nothing is going to change.”