16-year-old Greeshma Nayak, a student from Karnataka's Koratagere town recently made the headlines after topping her SSLC (Class 10) supplementary exams. This comes only a few months after Greeshma tried to die by suicide for not being able to pay her school fees and consequently being left out out classes, according to The Indian Express.
Greeshma is the daughter of a farmer from Tumakuru district. Her father, Narasimhamurthy B R, was hit severely by the pandemic and could not collect sufficient money to pay for her school. Her mother, Padamavathamma T P is a homemaker and could not arrange the fees too. After this, she was not allowed to attend classes and her name was also left out while registering for the exams.
"Despite not being able to attend classes as we were not in a position to pay the fees due to the COVID-19 crisis, my elder sister Keerthana helped me with the core subjects. I began learning language subjects three months before the examination but was shattered to know that my name was not registered by the school," said Greeshma in a statement to The Indian Express.
She ended up scoring 599/625 (95.84 percent) in her exams after being allowed to appear as a fresh candidate. "I was expecting to score above 615 (out of 625) but was worried during the examination as I erred in a few multiple-choice questions due to the tension I was in," she said.
A student of Alva’s English Medium High School, Dakshina Karnataka, she now hopes to secure admission in a college with science stream.
Greeshma was also congratulted on Twitter by the state's ex-CM Dr G Parameshwara. He wrote, "I visited the topper of SSLC supplementary exams Greeshma Nayak and her family to congratulate her for her academic achievement. I wish her all the best for her future endeavours."
While Greeshma's achievements are commendable, it is rather sad that she had to resort to a suicide attempt before being allowed to appear for the exams. Her parents have alleged that the school did not spare them any extra time in order to collect the money and instead resorted to such extreme measures. The school authorities, on the other hand, claim that they were never approached by Greeshma's parents at all.
(With inputs from The Indian Express).
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