Life threw many obstacles in her way, but Seyhan Palakcı never gave up on her dream of graduating from high school. And at 84, she finally achieved it.

The mother of three who hails from Altınordu, a district of the northern province of Ordu, graduated from a primary school in 1949, at a time when the schooling rate among girls was low in rural Turkey despite a massive education initiative launched in the early years of the republic. She never had the chance to attend middle school, "for some reasons" she says. After getting married, she once again postponed her education and devoted her time to raising her children, first in Turkey and then in Germany where she lived for a while with her husband. Finally, in 2012, Palakcı decided to pursue her dreams again. She first graduated from middle school and then from high school through a distance learning program. Palakcı now proudly displays her high school diploma. “Education has no age. I always regretted not going to school. Now, the more I read, the more I feel happier,” Palakcı told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Friday.

She now attends a computer literacy class at a local lifelong learning center in Ordu and advises the youth not to drop out of school and to always “improve themselves.”