Howrah: 11-year-old girl youngest to clear Madhyamik

HOWRAH: At 11, Saifa Khatoon from Howrah was the youngest ever to have taken and cleared Madhyamik exams.
But Khatoon’s parents are unhappy with her result—she has passed the Class X exams in second division—and are gearing up to challenge her scores, applying for a scrutiny and an RTI query. Her father, Sk Mohammed Ainur, a rural doctor, said, “My daughter is homeschooled as most of institutions refused her admission according to her merit.Even in the selection test, she scored high. How could she score so low? I think a fair scrutiny will do justice to her efforts.”
But it was not an easy task for the 11-year-old to appear for the exam, in which the average age of candidates is 16.
The father approached education minister Partha Chatterjee, seeking persmission to let Saifa appear for Madhyamik. “He said we should wait a bit. But when we insisted it would be a great injustice to her, Chatterjee arranged for a meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee. She told her officer to let her appear for test,” Ainur said.