84 year old woman starts primary school

[Lou_C]

84yo woman starts primary school
From correspondents in Dhaka
June 3, 2004

AN 84-year-old Bangladeshi woman who missed out on an education after being married off at age seven has started primary school for the first time, a report said .

Former child bride Fatema Khatun, now a widow, has enrolled for classes at her local government-run primary school where her classmates are aged nine and 10.

"I kept back the pain of not being able to go to school for more than 80 long years but finally I decided that I had to try and do this," Khatun was quoted as saying by the Bengali-language Prothom Alo newspaper.

Khatun, from a remote village in southwestern Chuadanga district, 157km from the capital Dhaka, said her children and grandchildren were happy to see her fulfilling her long-held dream.

Headteacher Saleha Begum described Khatun as a keen reader and model pupil who despite being an octogenarian was popular with fellow pupils.


http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9732437%255E13762,00.html

Good for her!