Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history, urged teachers today to support young people to believe in themselves.
Speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders, Ms Yousafzai, 19, said she would not have been able to accomplish her achievements without the support she received in her childhood, particularly from her father.
“I started to believe in my voice and I started to take it seriously because there was someone there who supported me,” she said.
“It’s so important that parents [and] teachers start appreciating children... and encouraging them to think even more.”
Ms Yousafzai rose to international fame when she started blogging anonymously about her life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley during the Taliban occupation, when female education was banned.
In October 2012 she was shot by a Taleban gunman. She was treated in a Birmingham hospital, and has continued her education at the city’s independent Edgbaston High School. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.
Ms Yousafzai joked that she attended the ASCL conference because she couldn’t refuse her head teacher, Ruth Weeks.
“When Dr Weeks says something, I can’t say no,” she said.
She also regailed the school leaders with the story of how she found out she’d won the Nobel Peace Prize during a Chemistry lesson.
“I was in school, I was in my Chemistry lesson.
“Our deputy head teacher appears in the classroom - was I in trouble or something?
“I went outside and she said ‘you’ve won the Nobel Peace Prize’. I said ‘thank you’.”
She then had to deliver an assembly to her fellow students (“one of the hardest speeches I have done”), before returning to class for a Physics lesson.
Ms Yousafzai, who is currently studying for A-levels, revealed that she had received a conditional offer of three As to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and said getting her grades was currently her “main focus”.
However, she said she would continue to fight for high quality education for all children through the Malala Fund.
“I will never stop until I see the last child going to school,” she said.
