Howrah school among global top-10 that braved tremendous odds to succeed

KOLKATA: Samaritan Mission School (High) that was started by a Class XII pass out in 2001 with just six students in a 400 sq ft room in a slum in Howrah's Tikiapara and now has 3,500 students has been recognized among the world's top 10 inspirational schools by UK-based research organization T4 Education in partnership with internationally acclaimed bodies.
"Happy to know and share that Samaritan Mission School of Howrah is amongst the top 10 inspirational schools all over the world...Kudos and best wishes," CM Mamata Banerjee tweeted on Friday.
The school was founded by Mamoon Akhtar, 51, who had to drop out of school when he was in VII due to financial difficulty and then did tuition to fund his education and pass Class X and XII.
"I wanted to start a school for the socially and economically disadvantaged so that there would be no dropouts. The turning point was when I saw a man beating a woman on one of the streets of our slum. I intervened and with a few neighbours handed him to the police. It later became apparent that the man was forcing the woman to store drugs in her house while she was resisting. I casually asked her son who was standing alongside where he was studying; he mentioned something inconsequential, so I told him to come to my place for tuition. He turned up the following day and then a day later, got some more and then on the third day even more children. I couldn’t turn them away; the result was that as the word spread that this teacher was charging next to nothing and teaching well, I had a class of more than 70 students accommodated in a 400 sq ft annex of our humble residence," recounted Akhtar, who now runs three schools with 6,300 students.
Not only has literacy in Tikiapara slums shot up, it has also reduced crime and empowered women. Apart from the schools, Akhtar's NGO Good Samaritans also runs a vocational training institute for about 200 women and a health chamber where we treat almost 300 patients daily. Howrah city police, which has actively supported Akhtar's initiatives, said domestic violence has also reduced in the area.
Samaritan Mission School has won in the category of overcoming adversity by tackling deprivation in a slum community. The school initiated community development programmes and worked to unite people of different socio-economic backgrounds and help slum residents realize the need for improvement in health, sanitation and communal harmony. The school's efforts to improve education has led to it having nearly 50% female students, 98% retention rate and 100% success in 10th and 12th grade examinations in recent years.
The other schools that feature in the list are from Kenya, Nigeria, Jamaica, South Africa, Uganda, Malaysia, Australia and Brazil.