The average 16-year-old might be used to sitting exams but they would not know the first thing about teaching them.

For 16-year-old Babar Ali, however, age is not an issue and he has become what is thought to be the world’s youngest headmaster.

The teenager from Murshidabad, West Bengal, has set up a school in his family’s garden and is in charge of 10 teachers and hundreds of pupils.

Babar attends another school in a nearby village, but when he returns home at 4pm he rings his own school bell, signifying the start of the school day for neighbouring children who cannot afford transport.

“In the beginning I was play acting,” Babar says, “but then I realised that these children will never learn to read and write if they do not have proper lessons. Without this school many kids would not get an education.”