An amazing 13-year-old girl from a poor family in north
India has enrolled in a master’s degree in
microbiology, after her father sold his land to pay for some of his daughter’s
tuition in the hope of catapulting her into India’s growing middle class. Verma finished high school
at 7 and earned an undergraduate degree at age 13 — milestones she said were
possible only with the sacrifices and encouragement of her uneducated and
impoverished parents.
“They
allowed me to do what I wanted to do,” Verma said in an interview Sunday,
speaking her native language of Hindi. “I hope that other parents don’t impose
their choices on their children.”
Sushma lives a very modest life with her three younger
siblings and her parents — eating, sleeping and studying
alongside them in a cramped single-room apartment in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar
Pradesh state.
Their
only income is her father’s daily wage of up to 200 rupees (less than $3.50)
for laboring on construction sites. Their most precious possessions include a
study table and a second-hand computer. It
is not a great atmosphere for studying, she admitted. “There are a lot of
dreams … All of them cannot be fulfilled.” But
having no television and little else at home has advantages, she said. “There
is nothing to do but study.”
Sushma
begins her studies next week at Lucknow’s B. R. Ambedkar Central University,
though her father is already ferrying her to and from campus each day on his
bicycle so she can meet with teachers before classes begin. Her first choice was to
become a doctor, but she cannot
take the test to qualify for medical school until she is 18.
“So I
opted for the MSc and then I will do a doctorate,” she said. Sushma — a skinny, poised girl with shoulder-length hair — is not the
first high-achiever in her family. Her older brother graduated from high school
at 9, and in 2007 became one of India’s youngest computer science graduates at
14.
In
another family, Sushma might not have been able to follow him into higher
education. Millions of Indian children are still not enrolled in grade school,
and many of them are girls whose parents choose to hold them back in favor of
advancing their sons. Some from conservative village cultures are expected only
to get married, for which their families will go into debt to pay exorbitant
dowry payments, even though they are illegal.
For
Sushma, her father sold his only pieces of land — 10,000 square feet (930
square meters) in a village in Uttar Pradesh —
for the cut-rate price of 25,000 rupees (about $400) to cover some of her
school fees.
“There was opposition from my family and
friends, but I did not have any
option,” said her father,
Tej Bahadur Verma.
The
rest of Sushma’s school fees will come from a charity that traditionally works
in improving rural sewage systems, which gave her a grant of 800,000 rupees
(about $12,600). “The girl is an inspiration for students from elite
backgrounds” who are born with everything, said Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh
International, who decided to help after seeing a local television program on
Sushma. She is also receiving financial aid from well-wishing civilians and
other charities.
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