Salima Khan spent her childhood in a village in Bulandshahr, India, where there was no education for girls. Now, at the age of 92, she is going to school for the first time and learning to read and write, inspiring others to follow her example.
The Indian woman, born in 1931, married at the age of 14 and has been studying for the last six months, accompanied by her daughterinlaw Firdaus, alongside children eight decades younger than her, including some of her greatgrandchildren. His story came to light after a video of him counting to one hundred went viral. “My grandchildren made me give them more money because I couldn’t count,” he told the Times of India newspaper. “Those days are over.”
Inspired by her example, 25 women from her city began attending literacy courses, the school’s director, Pratibha Sharma, told the Times of India.
The Guinness Book of Records lists the late Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge of Kenya as the oldest person to have completed primary education, attending an educational institution in 2004 at the age of 84. According to the 2011 census, the literacy rate in India is around 73%.
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