Mother, son pass Class 10 in Odisha

Tapai Pradhan flunked her first electoral test last year when she contested for the post of panchayat samiti member in Jaleswar block of coastal Balasore district during the three-tier panchayat polls.

On Monday however, the 33-year-old woman was grinning from ear to ear when she cleared the Class 10 board examination, 20 years after she left school. The mother’s joy in fact doubled as her 16-year-old son Bikash too cleared the Class 10 examination as a regular student.

“I dropped out in Class 8 as studies did not interest me then. Besides, there was financial crunch too. After I got married in 2001, my husband kept on pestering me to complete my education. Though I was reluctant, two years ago I thought hard about it and decided to enrol in the study centre of State Open School,” said Tapai. Her son Bikash Pradhan, who on Monday passed the Class 10 Board exam, said he too was inspired by his mother.

“I started focussing more on my studies after my mother enrolled in school last year,” said Bikash.

Tapai’s husband Ramesh Khatua, a farmer, was the only matriculate in the family till Monday. Now with both his wife and son clearing the exam, Ramesh said they would now enrol in a local college. “Our aim is to complete graduation so that nobody can brand us as uneducated,” said Pradhan.

On Monday, a father-son duo in Balasore district had cleared the matric exam, long after they left studies. Balasore BJP district vice-president Arun Kumar Bej (58) and his son Kumar Biswajit Bej (30) had cleared the matric examination simultaneously with similar marks.

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