Kerala brothers, one with cerebral palsy, ace SSLC exams

“Water is the elixir of life,” Mohammed Shaban said, looking at his classmates and teachers. He took them all by surprise that day, a year before COVID-19 struck. Shaban, as he is called, has cerebral palsy, and every day, he has come to school accompanied by his younger brother, Ibrahim. Even though they were a year apart, they were put in the same class, the same bench and shared the same textbooks. On Wednesday, when the SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) results were announced, the two brothers had sat tense at their home in Ezhome, a village in Kannur. To their joy, both scored A+ in all the subjects.

“He impressed us all that day by his English speech on the scarcity of water. He just went ahead to the front of a crowd and spoke about it so confidently. It was for our cultural fest and Shaban, who was in Class IX then, had won a lot of praise,” says Babitha, the special educator at Puthiyangadi Jama-Ath High School, where Shaban and Ibrahim studied from Class VII.

Shaban was five and a half, and Ibrahim four and a half when they joined Lower Kindergarten (LKG) at the MMUP school in Kuppam. Their father Basheer worked in Bengaluru and it was left to the mother Nazrina to take care of the boys. Every day she accompanied her sons to school and picked them up, till they reached Class VI.

“After that the younger one took over. Ibrahim took such good care of his brother in school, giving him his food, taking him to the toilet. They would leave home with one bag and one set of textbooks. But they had different notebooks. Shaban would write whatever he could at school, and what he missed, he would catch up by filling it at home,” says Nazrina, her voice thick with emotion.

Shaban and Ibrahim cut cake in celebration of their victory

In Class 7, they shifted to the Puthiyangadi school. “The teachers were all very supportive. And Shaban has an excellent memory,” the mother adds.

They didn’t go for external tuition. The only help the brothers got was from Nazrina's sister Nishana who worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia, and their cousin, another teacher. For his Class 10 exams, a student of Class IX in the same school, Aisha, became Shaban’s scribe. 

Shaban wants to be an IAS officer when he grows up, Ibrahim's interest is in accounting. So this year they will not be in the same classroom, one will go to Humanities, the other Commerce. But they will find a way to sort everything out, the mother is sure of that.

Also read: Four students from Kerala's Chilla home for children ace Class 10 exams