Is anyone really surprised?
Teenage Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai received straight-A’s in her General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations, the Daily Pakistan reports. The GCSE’s are standardized subject tests taken by secondary school students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The scores influence a test-taker’s future educational pursuits or professional prospects.
Yousafzai’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, tweeted his daughter’s grades shortly after they were released Thursday:
Passing grades range from A* (the highest grade, similar to an American A-plus) to “F,” while a failing mark is a “U.”
The Pakistani 18-year-old attends a private girls’ school in Birmingham, England. Her family has lived in the city since Yousafzai was transferred to a Birmingham hospital following a 2012 attack by a Taliban gunman in her home country. When Yousafzai -- who had been an outspoken advocate for girls’ education for several years -- was riding a bus home from school, a group of men boarded the vehicle and asked for her specifically. One man then shot her in the head.
After her recovery, she started the Malala Fund, a nonprofit devoted to girls’ education worldwide. She also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate in history.
On top of her other achievements, she’s managed to prioritize schoolwork, turning down hundreds of interviews and speaking engagements in order to study, according to The Guardian.
The Pakistan-based Express Tribune wrote that Yousafzai has “made the country proud once again.”
Contact the author of this article at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com