Some exam-time stories linger long after the results are forgotten. The story of Ismail Ikon Daria, from Bagerhat, is one of them: twenty-four hours no teenager should ever have to endure, and a phone call two nights later promising that his struggle would no longer be his alone.
On the evening of Wednesday, July 22, the personal secretary of the Minister of Primary and Mass Education, Dr. A. N. M. Ehsanul Haque Milon, called Ikon with a message from the minister himself: the minister was taking responsibility for his education.
The Hardest Twenty-Four Hours
To understand what that call means, you have to understand the day that came before it.
At dawn on Tuesday, Ikon’s father, 45-year-old Israfil Daria, who supported his family as a motorcycle taxi driver, suddenly fell ill at his home near the Munigonj Medical College in Bagerhat. He was rushed to the 250-bed Bagerhat District Hospital around 6 a.m., where the attending physician pronounced him dead. He is survived by his wife and two sons: Imon, the eldest, who is ill, and Ikon, the youngest.
After the Zohr prayers, the janaza was held at the Munigonj two-storey Jame Mosque. The family then carried Israfil to their village home in Gopalganj, where he was laid to rest beside his own mother’s grave.
And so, with the earth of his father’s grave still fresh, Ikon did what was required of him. That same Tuesday night, he returned to his workplace: the ATM at the Agricultural Bank in the Railroad area of ​​Bagerhat, where he works the night shift as a part-time security guard to help support his family while he studies. Around 10 p.m., he was seen at his post, fulfilling his duty, his books by his side.
The next morning, he walked into an exam hall and sat his HSC paper.
Who Ikon Is
Ikon is a humanities student at Khan Jahan Ali College in Bagerhat and is preparing for this year’s university entrance exam. Like thousands of students across the country, his education has always been tied to work: night shifts at the ATM help support a family that suddenly lost its main breadwinner, while his ailing older brother needs care.
A photograph of Ikon preparing for his exam at the ATM, hours after his father’s funeral, went viral on social media and touched the nation. Thousands responded with prayers and admiration, writing that a young man capable of demonstrating such patience and courage in life’s toughest test deserved every success in his studies. The residents of Bagerhat spoke with pride of his sense of duty.
The Minister Steps In
That viral photograph evidently traveled far. On Wednesday night, the Education Minister’s Personal Secretary, Farhan Ishtiaq, called Ikon to convey the minister’s decision — and its practical shape:
- Immediate financial assistance is being sent to Ikon within a day or two, on the minister’s instruction, so that he does not have to work during his remaining examinations. With HSC papers still ahead on the routine, the timing of this matters enormously — for the first time this exam season, Ikon can be only a student on exam nights
- After the exams end, comprehensive support for his continued education — the minister’s assurance that the responsibility being taken is for Ikon’s studies as a whole, not a one-time gesture
For a family that lost its breadwinner on a Tuesday morning, the assurance changes what the coming months look like.
A Story Bigger Than One Student
It’s worth pausing to consider what made this story go viral. Ikon isn’t the only student in Bangladesh who works nights and takes exams in the morning; in this HSC season alone, thousands of candidates silently do the same. What his twenty-four hours achieved was to bring this invisible reality to light: pain, duty, and ambition condensed into a single day, faced without complaint.
Life’s toughest tests rarely coincide with exam schedules. Ikon faced his early and overcame it with fortitude. Whatever his HSC exam scores may be, the country has already seen what he’s made of, and now, so has the Ministry of Education.
To Ikon: your remaining exams are yours to focus on now. And to our readers — stories like this are why education coverage matters beyond routines and results. We’ll follow Ikon’s journey, and we wish him, his mother and his brother strength in the days ahead. Stay with us.
