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Nepali woman's quest to learn takes her back to school with son
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Parwati Sunar, 27, sings the national anthem of Nepal while attending an assembly at Jeevan Jyoti secondary school in Punarbas, Kanchanpur district, southwest Nepal, August 7, 2022. Parwati attends the same school as her eldest son, Resham, after returning to an education system she fled at the age of 15, when she eloped with a man seven years her senior. Parwaiti said she hoped to become (Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar)
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Nepali mother of two, Parwati Sunar finds herself attending the same school as her son after returning to an education system she fled at the age of 15, when she eloped with a man seven years her senior.
"I enjoy learning and am proud to attend with classmates who are like my own children," Sunar told Reuters from her village of Punarbas on the southwestern edge of the Himalayan nation, where she studies in seventh grade.
Just about 57 percent of women are literate in the country of 29 million, and the 27-year-old Sunar said she hoped to become "literate enough" to be able to keep household accounts.
"I think I should not have left my school," she said, explaining the desire to catch up on the lessons she missed, having had her first child at 16.
"I feel good to go to school with mum," said her son, Resham, 11, who is a grade behind his mother, spends lunch breaks with her and rides pillion as she bicycles to computer classes they attend at an institute nearby.
"We chat as we walk to school and we learn from our conversation," he said, adding that his mother hoped he could become a doctor.
As a student, Sunar was below average, but a keen learner, said Bharat Basnet, the principal of the village school, Jeevan Jyoti.
