INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
My father, Rafiqul Alam, who has actually died aged 97, ended up being a history instructor in Essex after relocating to the UK from the
Indian subcontinent in the early 1960s
Later he taught kids in London whose first language was not English, before returning for a years to his homeland to set up and run a main
school in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.Rafiqul was born in Narayanganj, in what was then the British Raj but is now Bangladesh, to Abdul
Shamsuzzoha, an instructor and schools inspector, and his partner, Shamsunnissa Begum
Not long after leaving Nabakumar high school in Dhaka, and still a teen, on a check out to Kolkata he witnessed hunger triggered by the
Came communal riots after partition, and in 1947 he signed up with the Communist party, a move that saw him jailed without charge on three
events by the government of the freshly formed territory of East Pakistan
He and his associates opposed via a cravings strike and were force fed by prison staff.Rafiqul wed Sultana Banu in 1953, ended up being a
pharmaceuticals salesman, attempted his hand at exporting fish and making furnishings, and then went to Dhaka University, where he got a
history degree followed by a masters
That permitted him to find a civil service task at the Ministry for Social Welfare in Karachi till, in 1961, he moved to London to take an
MPhil at the School of Oriental and African Studies (now Soas University of London), while working for British Rail.His spouse and young
family joined him in 1962, and on the conclusion of his studies in 1965, he taught history at St Edwards comprehensive school in Romford,
Essex, where he introduced social research studies, British constitution and sociology into the curriculum.In 1979 he left for Nigeria to
take a job training teachers there, and on his return in 1981, after a period of unemployment, he was designated by the London borough of
Waltham Forests English language service to teach children whose first language was not English.In 1988 he returned to Bangladesh to care
for his elderly dad and to satisfy his dream of starting a school for primary children there, developing and running his own Redland school
in Dhaka for the next decade
On his retirement he moved back to the UK, where he took on part-time tutoring work with main schoolchildren in Hertfordshire
He just stopped teaching completely around 2009 to take care of Sultana, who had actually been identified with Parkinsons and Alzheimers
In 2019 Rafiqul embarked on his last educational adventure when he took part in the intergenerational dementia task at Downshall main school
in east London, which combines older grownups and children to enhance the quality of life and chances for both.He is endured by 3 kids,
Rita, Apu and me, 5 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
