Jahirul Islam, who has scored a GPA-5 from the capital’s Notre Dame College, stood out in the crowd of jubilant faces as his friends kept pushing him towards television cameras and media personnel.
He told The Daily Star that his friends are proud of him because of the way he tackled an uphill struggle to achieve this outstanding result.
Jahir’s father Tajul Islam is one of the many pavement hawkers in front of Baitul Mukarram mosque whose makeshift stalls had been burnt down in the violence centring on Hefajat-e Islam’s May 5 long march.
“As my father’s shop burnt up, I thought my dream of becoming a chartered accountant someday was coming to an end,” Jahir told this correspondent.
After passing SSC exams from Comilla Mahini High School, he had come to Dhaka with his father for higher education.
Hailing from a remote Nangalkot area in Comilla, Jahir claims to be the first person from his thana to study in a prestigious institution like Notre Dame College.
He said he shared with his father a room at a mess in Kamrangirchar on the outskirts of the city and never got the private coaching that many of his peers did since his father, ailing and unable to work most of the time, could not afford it.
In fact, after his father’s stall was burnt down in the middle of his HSC exams, they had a hard time managing food, he added.
“The Tk 50,000 compensation that we received from the government pulled us through,” said Jahir.
He now plans to seek admission to Dhaka University and wants to devote himself to educating children in his village in future.
Source: The Daily Star
