I am a teacher at an intermediate school in Rajwapur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district. My journey to attain education is riddled with struggles. In my childhood, my parents barely had the means to fund my education as it was considered to be an avoidable excess in our household which could barely make the ends meet.

I cycle almost 30 kilometres daily to commute to my school. Despite my best efforts at teaching the students, I find it distressing that many students drop out of school and do not complete their formal education. The biggest reason behind the drop out in the schools in the rural areas is poverty. Many students find it difficult to afford even Rs 50 as their school fees. 

In such cases, I pay the fees of these students from my salary and ensure that they don’t drop out of school. It all started when a student came to me and informed that he would not be studying any further as his father is not earning money anymore. When I asked him the reason about his father’s loss of work, I learnt that the man had met with an accident and was wounded.

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I enquired further and went to his house to check if he was telling the truth. He was truthful. I saw his ailing father who told me that he won’t be able to afford his son’s fees anymore. The incident brought back memories of my own childhood and I decided to pay the fees of all such students who dropped out because of not being able to pay school fees.

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