Rajshahi day labourer Arafat Hossain earns GPA-5 in the HSC exams

Waking before dawn to study, then heading out to the fields once the morning advanced, and returning home in the evening after a day of manual labour — that was the daily routine of 18-year-old Arafat Hossain.

He did back-breaking work four days a week and cycled six kilometres to college on the other three days on his late father's broken bicycle. Locals knew Arafat as a day labourer, but in this year's HSC examinations he has set a remarkable example by earning a GPA-5.

Arafat is the son of the late Abul Kashem of Bagmara Paschimpara in Bagmara upazila, Rajshahi. He earned the GPA-5 from the humanities group at Bhabaniganj Government University College. His family and neighbours are delighted at the success in the HSC results published last Saturday.

Family and local sources say Arafat's father, Abul Kashem, died in 2021 when Arafat was in class eight. His father was the family's sole earner. After his death, responsibility for his mother and his brother, four years younger, fell on the teenage Arafat's shoulders.

To keep the household running, his mother, Shilpi Khatun, began privately tutoring local children, while Arafat started work as a helper in betel-leaf gardens. After passing his SSC exams, as pressure on the family grew, he had to take up day labour in earnest.

Despite the hard work and financial hardship, and although his SSC result was not what he had hoped for, he did not give up. He enrolled in the humanities group at the college, six kilometres from home.

When his home was visited on Sunday afternoon, Arafat was not there. His mother said he was working in his uncle's betel-leaf garden at the time. He was called back, and spoke, becoming emotional as he described his struggle.

Arafat said that apart from Fridays and Saturdays, he worked as a day labourer on days when there were no important classes, and usually went to college three days a week. Alongside work in the betel-leaf gardens, he has also harvested paddy and dug earth.

He had no good clothes; he spent two years wearing a single set. But his mother always gave him courage and inspiration, and that is why his studies never stopped, he said.

Arafat added that poverty meant he could not buy all the guide and reference books he needed, but his college teachers helped him with books and in other ways.

His proud mother, Shilpi Khatun, said Arafat has kept studying since childhood by working for others and enduring hardship. She could not regularly provide him three meals a day or buy him good clothes, and running the household is still very difficult. She hopes to send her son to the city for higher education, but does not know how far their means will stretch.

Mamunur Rashid, Arafat's neighbour and a teacher at Bhabaniganj Government University College, said that by working as a day labourer and persevering through hundreds of obstacles and want, Arafat has set a unique example, and the whole college family is proud of his success. He said well-off and humane members of society should come forward to stand beside Arafat to smooth his path to higher education.