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Aziz Royesh (center) in the streets near the Marefat School in Kabul. Zabihullah Tamanna for NPR hide caption

Aziz Royesh (center) in the streets near the Marefat School in Kabul.

Aziz Royesh is a man whose life has been defined by one over-arching ambition: He says he simply wants to be a teacher.

At 46, he has achieved that goal in one of the most difficult and dangerous environments in the world Afghanistan. He has also founded a school that is now winning international acclaim as a model for education in that war-battered nation.

Royesh has done this without any professional teaching qualifications, and despite being compelled by conflict to end his own formal education at the age of 10. He is the driving force behind the creation of Marefat School, a cluster of stark buildings amid the mud-bound alleys on the western edge of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The students are almost all impoverished Hazaras, a Shia Muslim minority that's suffered heavily during Afghanistan's many years of conflict.

He's also one of 10 teachers short-listed for the Varkey Foundation's Global Teacher Prize an award billed as the Nobel prize for educators. The winner will be announced Sunday. Royesh says, if he's chosen, he'll donate the $1 million prize money to his school.

'They Can Laugh With Me'

Royesh (right) visits music class. Zabihullah Tamanna for NPR hide caption

Royesh (right) visits music class.

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From Afghanistan's Rubble, A Teacher Builds A School Of Ideas