Noor Rehman stood at the front of his Class 3 classroom, carrying his grade report with unsteady hands. Number one. Once more. His teacher beamed with happiness. His schoolmates cheered. For a fleeting, precious moment, the young boy more info imagined his dreams of turning into a soldier—of defending his homeland, of rendering his parents happy—were within reach.
That was a quarter year ago.
Today, Noor is not at school. He's helping his dad in the wood shop, practicing to polish furniture in place of studying mathematics. His school clothes hangs in the cupboard, unused but neat. His learning materials sit piled in the corner, their sheets no longer turning.
Noor didn't fail. His household did everything right. And yet, it proved insufficient.
This is the narrative of how financial hardship does more than restrict opportunity—it removes it completely, even for the brightest children who do all that's required and more.
When Superior Performance Isn't Enough
Noor Rehman's parent is employed as a woodworker in the Laliyani area, a modest village in Kasur region, Punjab, Pakistan. He is experienced. He remains diligent. He departs home before sunrise and gets home after dusk, his hands worn from many years of shaping wood into products, frames, and embellishments.
On good months, he makes 20,000 Pakistani rupees—roughly seventy US dollars. On challenging months, even less.
From that wages, his family of six members must afford:
- Housing costs for their little home
- Provisions for four
- Utilities (electric, water supply, fuel)
- Healthcare costs when kids become unwell
- Commute costs
- Clothes
- Everything else
The arithmetic of economic struggle are simple and harsh. There's never enough. Every unit of currency is committed ahead of it's earned. Every decision is a choice between needs, not ever between necessity and extras.
When Noor's academic expenses were required—together with costs for his siblings' education—his father encountered an unworkable equation. The math wouldn't work. They never do.
Something had to be eliminated. Someone had to surrender.
Noor, as the oldest, grasped first. He remains dutiful. He is mature beyond his years. He comprehended what his parents couldn't say out loud: his education was the expense they could no longer afford.
He didn't cry. He didn't complain. He simply stored his uniform, put down his books, and requested his father to train him carpentry.
Because that's what children in financial struggle learn earliest—how to abandon their dreams without complaint, without troubling parents who are presently managing more than they can handle.