Mrs. Fareeda Banu, Co-Founder, Shahbaaz English Medium School

There are people without whom an institution simply would not exist, and then there are people without whom it would not endure. Mrs. Fareeda Banu is both.

Since the doors of Shahbaaz opened on 1st June 1983, she has been there. Through the school’s uncertain early years and its years of growth, through personal losses and professional challenges, through every ordinary and extraordinary demand that four decades of running a school of this magnitude places upon a person, she has shown up. Quietly, dutifully, and without a single day’s exception.

Her academic formation began at Osmania University, where she read Biology, Zoology, and Chemistry, obtaining her B.Sc. in BZC in 1978. She completed her B.Ed. from Gulbarga University in 1988, characteristically, in the midst of managing both the school and a young family, because for Mrs. Fareeda Banu, the demands of one responsibility have never diminished her commitment to another.

In the classroom, she is a study in quiet authority. Mild-mannered and soft-spoken, she has never needed to raise her voice to command a room. Beyond the classroom, her contribution to the daily life of the school is immeasurable. She has, for over four decades, overseen the school timetable, the teachers’ schedule, attendance, teaching staff interviews, and the training and guidance of both new and experienced staff. She manages the school’s day-to-day affairs with a calm efficiency that belies the complexity of what she does: creating calendars and timetables with remarkable facility, deploying time and resources judiciously, and ensuring that the school runs as it should, every single day.

She is a steadfast champion of children who struggle. She has spent thousands of hours working with slow learners, ensuring they are not left behind, placing particular emphasis on reading comprehension. Her patience and dedication in this regard have defined the experience of countless students who passed through Shahbaaz.

Pious, devoted, and punctual in all her observances, she brings to her work the same discipline and sincerity she brings to her faith. Generations of alumni return to Shahbaaz to meet her, seek her counsel, and ask for her duas, a testament to the lasting impression she leaves on all who learn under her care.

Following the passing of her husband in 2012, Mrs. Fareeda Banu has continued to guide the school with unwavering steadiness, even as she supports her son, Mr. Adnan Vazir, as he steers the institution forward into a new era.