KARACHI: `It is time to celebrate those teachers who have made education their passion and devoted their entire life to guarantee their country a secure and educatedfuture,`saidMosharraf Zaidi, an organiser at a programme organised by Alif Ailaan, a non-governmental organisation campaigning to improve standards of education in the country at a hotel.

The event featured three short documentaries made by Shehryar Mufti profiling four teachers from across the country who excelled in their profession and did wonders in the face of adversity and ensured education for the young population, girls in particular.

When authorities in Sindh concede that 40 per cent of the teachers in the province draw hefty salaries without turning up at schools, these documentaries promise that every cloud has a silver lining.

The longest of the three documentaries was A brick in each hand based on Farzana Sial, a young schoolteacher in Khairpur Mirs district, who has been teaching for the past 15 years.

A brick in each hand is the story of a heroic teacher, for whom no challenge is insurmountable when it comes to ensuring a brighter future for her students.

Driven by her commitment to teaching and her passion for her students, she successfully takes on a landlord bent on shutting down her school.

Her passion motivates her students so immensely thatthey pick up bricks in their hand against their own parents who they see as siding with the landlord.

The film showcases how a woman`s struggle and perseverance gradually transforms the attitude of an entire community towards education.

`When I see how successfully I have got the mothers taught by their daughters at night when their husbands are asleep and then make the whole community friendly to education, it makes me so elated that even someone sitting on the chair of the president could not be so glad, said Farzana, now a principal at a government school in Khairpur, in the film.

Renowned poet and teacher Anwar Masood is featured in another documentary in which he concludes that he is completely satisfied with what he has done for his students when he retires after decades of employment with a government college.

He was educated in Gujrat and Lahore and went on to be a teacher and lecturer in different colleges of Punjab for 34 years.

A three-minute film also documents Rashida Anwar and Abdul Munaf Khan, primary schoolteachers in Haripur. Ms Anwar spent the first 15 years of her teaching career at an elite private school in Karachi.

Driven by her passion for teaching, she left a comfortable city life and returned to her native village in Charsadda where she has been teaching children and training teachers now for 15 years.