Manuela Hernandez, a 100-year-old grandmother, has graduated from grade school, over 90 years after she dropped out to look after her family.
Ms. Hernandez was truant for 90 years after her family decided that she needed to stay home from school when she was a child to help with various chores in their home state of Oaxaca, Mexico.
These tasks included standing “on top of a box to shoo away flies from the food” and various other requests that her mother and father would make of her.
Born in Oaxaca in June 1913, the year before World War I began, Hernandez always rued her elders’ decision to pull her out of her studies, so, last October, at the age of 99, she decided, at the recommendation of one of her grand-children, to go back.
She has now been handed her diploma, which celebrates her achievement, at a celebration in the southern Mexican state.
Ms. Hernandez told Uno TV about being pulled out of school, “I liked school very much, but I could not continue studying. By the next year I could already wash and iron.” She has also added that she would now like to continue her studies, and progress into secondary school.
Over half of Oaxaca state residents older than 15 haven’t completed their primary education. This is the second-highest rate in the country, and only their neighboring state of Chiapas are in front of them, a state education official stated.
Hernandez also noted, ” I passed by the school many times but I couldn’t be a student. because my mother was very poor. My parents didn’t insist on me studying. I wanted to go but I couldn’t because my mother didn’t have the money.”
Ms Hernandez’s Uncle had originally put her in the school before she was then taken out because of her washing and ironing prowess.
Would you like to still be in education at 100?
