It cannot compete on salary, housing, amenities, or career opportunities, nor can it offer the advantages that typically draw professionals to remote postings. When a teacher leaves Dapa, there is no pool of qualified candidates waiting to replace them. There is simply a school without a teacher.
Which often means a remote community has only one reliable source of educators: the girls who grow up there. In places like Dapa and Malpan, girls ' education and teacher recruitment are not separate challenges. They are the same challenge, separated by about 15 years.
Shehnaaz teaching her Early Childhood Development class
Shehnaaz
Shehnaaz Batool attended Community School Dapa from preschool through grade 5. The school was small, remote, and short on resources. Yet it gave her something invaluable. Beyond teaching her to read and write, her teachers instilled confidence, discipline, and curiosity. Most importantly, they believed she could continue her education and told her so at an age when many girls in mountain communities hear the opposite. For Shehnaaz, continuing was not easy. Her family had limited financial means, and there was no school beyond grade 5 in the village. Pursuing an education meant overcoming distance as well as cost. Still, she continued.
Shehnaaz, 24, now teaches Early Childhood Development at Community School Dapa in the same classrooms where she once sat as a student. One girl becomes a teacher. Suddenly, other girls can see what is possible.
Nusrat
In Malpan, a similar story unfolded for a girl named Nusrat Fatima.
Nusrat attended Bushra Inspire Primary School through grade 5. During those years, she was taught by a man named Muhammad Ayub, whom she still credits, by name, with convincing her that education was worth the sacrifices it would require. His encouragement helped shape what she believed she could become. Overcoming the obstacles that cause so many girls in isolated villages of Gilgit Baltistan to leave school, she continued her education beyond grade 5. With hard work and determination, she qualified as a teacher and
Nusrat teaching her students at Bushra Inspire Primary School eventually returned to Bushra Inspire Primary School, where she now teaches. Note the chain created: a teacher named Ayub taught a girl named Nusrat. Nusrat now teaches the children of Malpan.
And in the future, some of those children may teach the next generation. Three generations are visible in that single chain. And the whole thing rests on a small primary school with limited resources, vulnerable to closure in a single difficult year.
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