Kolkata, India

Photographer: Sudipto Das

Year of Submission: 2016 (Educators Edition) 

Mohd Alamgir, 61, dreams of the day when everyone in his home neighbourhood of Darpara can read. That day may not be far off. Thanks in good part to his work over three and a half decades, nine out of ten people in this century-old slum district of central Kolkata are literate, and 8% of its school students, mostly girls, are going on to graduate from universities. Mohd began his career as a school teacher at a government-run school in 1981, straight after completing a law degree. He has remained there ever since, concentrating in particular on teaching girls. A literate mother, he says, will never leave her children uneducated.