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RANCHI: Creating an example, a 56-year-old tribal man cleared the Class 10 board examination to get his daily wage job regularised.

According to Ganga Oraon, he has been working as a daily wage worker for the last 16 years, but when it came to the regularisation of his job, the officials turned down his application for

not being a matriculate.

Ganga Oraon, who works as a daily wage worker at the District Superintendent of Education (DSE) Office in Khunti, has secured 47.2 per cent in the Class 10 Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC)

Examination. He wrote his examination from Birsa High School at Chalagi in Khunti.

A resident of Kalamati village under Khunti Sadar block, Oraon had always dreamt of completing his education so that he could get a government job and support his family. But poverty upset

his plans.

According to Ganga Oraon, he could not continue his studies beyond Class 9 and write the matric examination in 1983-84 as his family could not afford the required registration fee for the

board exam, which was Rs 40 at that time.

“Presently, I am getting around Rs 9,000 every month by working as a daily wage worker at the DSE Office. I have been requesting the officials there to regularize my job, but they turned it

down every time, saying that I did not have a matric certificate,” said Ganga Oraon.

Fed up with the excuses, Ganga Oraon decided to write the Class 10 board exams and finally did it. He cleared Class 9 examination in 2024 and then passed the Class 10 board exam this year.

The results were declared on Tuesday.

“Now, I hope that my job will be regularised as they don’t have any excuse. My entire family is happy that I have passed the matric exam,” said Oraon. He has four daughters, his wife, and an

80-year-old mother in his family.

Interestingly, Ganga Oraon had also written a letter to the district officials in 2006-07, demanding secondary and high schools in his village, as there were none.

“The entire village supported me in this mission and within days, we cleared the hilly terrain and handed over the required land to the government. Happy with my efforts, the officials gave

me the responsibility of looking after the construction work of the school,” he said.

Later, in 2009, he applied for the daily wage job and got it.

Explaining his plight, Oraon said he had to face many difficulties for not having a Class 10 certificate, which shattered his dreams of joining the Indian Army or Jharkhand Police.

When asked how he managed his studies along with his job and family responsibilities, he said he used to study at night and early in the morning at 4 am so that his work and other duties

were not affected.

According to Oraon, people did not take him seriously in the village and he was not getting the respect due to him for not being matric-pass. Out of his four daughters, two have passed Class

12 and two have cleared Class 10. They are proud of their father.

“It is really a great news for all of us that despite being an under-matric, my father ensured that all his daughters clear at least Class 10 so that they are not counted among the

illiterate in society,” said his elder daughter Pramila Oraon.

District Education Officer Apoorva Pal Chaudhary also lauded Ganga Oraon’s achievement, saying that he has proved there is no age for studies. “In a district like Khunti, where the student

dropout rate is very high, a daily wage worker has made the entire district proud by passing the Class 10 board examination,” she said.