::: Star Insight :::

She

From Mymensingh
Remembering a Brilliant Teacher

Md. Nurul Islam

Some women stand in the limelight as role models to others, but there are others who do not seek attention and are less known. Professor Nadira Sultana was a person, whose integrity can serve as a model for young women.

Professor Nadira Sultana passed away on September 1, 2001. The loss of such a woman has left behind a void never to be filled again. She was a good wife, a successful mother, an ideal teacher, and an active social worker. She was a person with strong values. All her colleagues and students loved and respected her. In her 22 years in the field, she became a very popular teacher. Her knowledge of the material, her ability to deliver and her experience together made the best teacher one could ask for. She was an educationalist and an avid social worker.

Professor Sultana was the wife of veteran journalist Fazlur Rahman Siddique. She was born on 1st December 1950 at Balia Village under Phulpur Upazilla in Mymensingh. She came from an educated Muslim family and had been a teacher all her life. She chose her career in 1979. After serving as a teacher in different educational institutions under Mymensingh and Gazipur districts, she joined the Government Muminunnesa Women's College of Mymensingh district town in 1981.

Not only was she a dedicated teacher who took her classes regularly, but with the help of the college principal she also set up a women's hostel in the compound soon after joining. This did much to solve the accommodation problems of the college's rural female students.

She was an outstanding scholar and keen on mathematics. She earned a first class in both her Honors and Masters examinations from Dhaka University. She obtained her BEd degree with a first division from Dhaka University in 1979. Subsequently, to improve her professional skills as a teacher, she underwent higher education training from the School of Education at Leeds University in the United Kingdom in 1996. This training gave her proficiency in not only mathematics and science, but also in English Language.

She has always had a hectic schedule. She worked almost 15-hour days starting work at seven in the morning and not resting till midnight. She spent these extra hours at the college hostel to provide extra guidance and coaching to the students.

It was her life-long dream to make her only son an engineer and her only daughter a doctor. Within two years of her death, these dreams were realized as her son obtained a B.Sc. degree and her daughter obtained an M.B.B.S. degree.

Professor Nadira Sultana did not just occupy herself with teaching, but also involved herself in numerous social welfare activities. She tirelessly spoke out against the oppression of women and fought for the betterment of their condition right until her death.