Around the world millions of children do not get an education because their families are too poor to afford to send them to school. In India, one schoolboy is trying to change that. At 16 years old, Babar Ali must be the youngest headmaster in the world. He's a teenager who is in charge of teaching hundreds of students in his family's backyard, where he runs classes for poor children from his village.
The story of this young man from Murshidabad in West Bengal is a remarkable tale of the desire to learn amid the direst poverty. Babar Ali's day starts early. He wakes, pitches in with the household chores, then jumps on an auto-rickshaw which takes him part of the 10km (six mile) ride to the school he attends. Babar Ali is the first member of his family ever to get a proper education. His family has to find around 1,800 rupees a year ($40) to send him to school. In this part of West Bengal that is a lot of money.
The minute his lessons are over at school, Babar Ali doesn't stop to play, he heads off to share what he's learnt with other children from his village. At four o'clock every afternoon a bell summons children to his house. They flood through the gate into the yard behind his house, where Babar Ali now acts as headmaster of his own, unofficial school.
Babar Ali gives lessons just the way he has heard them from his teachers. Some children are seated in the mud, others on rickety benches under a rough, homemade shelter. The family chickens scratch around nearby. In every corner of the yard are groups of children studying hard.
His afternoon school has 800 students, all from poor families, all taught for free. Most of the girls come here after working as domestic helps in the village, and the boys after they have finished their day's work laboring in the fields.
Including Babar Ali there are now 10 teachers at the school, all, like him are students at school or college, who give their time voluntarily. Babar Ali doesn't charge for anything, even books and food are given free, funded by donations. It means even the poorest can come here.
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