Proving that age is no barrier to education, Koletkar Kalpana Achyut, a 53-year-old woman from Maharashtra has passed Class 10 (SSC) exams, 37 years after she dropped out of school due to financial problems.
And that's not all. Achyut has done well in the exams, scoring 79.60 percent.
Sharing Achyut's inspiring story, her son, Prasad Jambhale, who is a senior software engineer at Mastercard wrote a heartwarming post for her on LinkedIn. "Very proud of you mother," he stated in the post.
Her story has since gone viral on social media, with congratulatory messages flooding Jambhale's post.
What Made Achyut Revisit School?
In the post Jambhale said that his mother had to drop out of school and start working at the age of 16 to manage the financial crisis at home after the death of her father. She had to also ensure that her siblings continued their education, he said.
Cut to 2021, Achyut got an opportunity to complete her SSC and began pursuing it immediately.
"Last year my mother was at a government school where she had some work, a teacher asked her about her education and after knowing that she didn’t clear SSC she informed my mother that there’s a new government scheme where the people who have not completed their SSC can reappear," Jambhale wrote in the post.
"The cost of offline and online training, study material all would be given free of cost by government," Achyut was told.
Since December 2021, she began going to night school. Achyut, however, didn't reveal about this to her family.
Koletkar Kalpana Achyut in her class room.
(Photo: Prasad Jambhale/LinkedIn)
Jambhale said, "As I stay away, I came to know about it just recently when I was about to get married before her exams. Whenever I was in Ireland and used to call during Indian night-time, I used to ask where’s mom? And I was told that she has gone for a walk, I thought that’s odd that she got interested into walks. Little did I know that she was attending night school. She even managed to keep this secret hidden for a month from my father and brother, who stay under the same roof."
'Never Stop Learning'
Jambhale said that his mother was a brilliant student in her class.
"When I was back in India, she showed me her notebook and I was amazed to see how good she was in Algebra and English. Even after so many years she was able to grasp everything so well. And not just that. Her exams were in March and my marriage was in February. She managed to do all the multitasking needed," Jambhale said.
"Sometimes I feel I am so fortunate that I had no worries about anything and was able to get to the position, just because of the privilege I have. Who knows what my mother could have achieved more if she had the same privilege as me? Have always been very proud of my mother and now this would always imprint a lesson in my mind, never stop learning, even if has to take an age of 53 to pass the SSC (sic)," he added.
Responding to people's queries about the scheme through which his mother completed Class 10, Jambhale said, "If you're staying in Mumbai, you can go to the nearest BMC school, and ask them for the admission to night school. Unfortunately, we are not aware about the existence of such a scheme at other states or cities."
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