Beldanga, Feb. 5: In this Murshidabad village, child is the father of the woman.

Twenty-five students of a primary school in Murshidabad's Nowpukuria have been teaching their parents, mostly mothers, to read and write.

Teachers of the Nowpukuria Natunpara Primary School said they had taken the decision to persuade the students to turn teachers at home after noticing that many of the parents still put thumb impression instead of signatures to record their presence at parent-teachers meetings.

The primary school has 502 students. During a survey conducted by the school three years ago, it was found that 40 parents, most of them women, were unlettered. This year, 25 students of Classes III and IV have taken up the responsibility of teaching their parents at home.

In order to encourage the endeavours, the school felicitated 14 parents - 12 mothers and two fathers - on January 28. Each parent was given storybooks and study material.

The initiative has mostly helped the mothers. Most of the students said their fathers were farmers or labourers and needed to spend the whole day in the fields rather than taking lessons from their children. The women are homemakers.

According to officials in the district primary school council, Murshidabad has an overall literacy rate of 66.95 per cent. While the women account for 63.09 per cent, the literacy rate of men is nearly 70 per cent.

Biswajit Dutta, a teacher of the primary school, said: "We call periodic meetings with parents to create awareness among them on child marriage and the importance of education. We noticed that many of the parents gave their thumb impression in the attendance register. So, we thought that if the students can teach their parents to read and write, the social scene in the village will change."

The school conducted the survey three years ago and found that 40 parents in the village were unlettered.

Headmistress Panpiara Khatun said: "All 40 parents have learnt how to read and write. But we want more and more parents to become literate in the village. We will continue this initiative every year."

Thirty-five year-old Habiba Bibi, wife of a small farmer, said both she and her husband, Taher Ali, had never gone to school.

"I got married at the age of 15 and I am the mother of four daughters and a son. I never went to school but over the past one year, my husband and I are being taught by my son at night. My husband can now read newspapers and I can write my name and address. But I wish to learn more," she said.

Another woman in the village whose daughter is teaching her letters of the English alphabet said she wished her husband could join them.

"He doesn't find time. All day, he is in the field. At night, he is too tired to study anything," the woman said.

The chairman of Murshidabad primary school council, Debashis Baishya, lauded the teachers of the Nowpukuria school. "They have set an example. We will help the school with study material."