Hafiz graduated with a degree in software engineering from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology on Saturday.

Banu, 49, had spent the best part of the last four years accompanying Hafiz to his classes in Cyberjaya so she could double up as his interpreter as Hafiz could only understand sign language.

Hafiz, who has been suffering from celebral palsy since birth, is hearing-impaired and also wheelchair-bound, which made it difficult for his parents to find a suitable higher education institute that could accommodate him.

“He studied in a normal class. I would go into the class with him everyday and interpret what the lecturers were saying to him,” Banu told The Malay Mail at the family’s home in Kota Kemuning yesterday.

She said Hafiz decided to take up software engineering as he loved computers but it took him four years to complete the course as he could only cope with take four subjects in a semester.

“Six subjects were too much for us,” she said. Although he took longer than usual to complete his studies, Hafiz was no less a brilliant student.

A quick check on his results slip show that during the first semester last year, he scored As in all the four subjects — even chalking up 4.00 pointers for three of them.

“When his graduation came along, the lecturers who have noticed what I have been doing decided to give me a special award as well,” Banu said.

At Hafiz’s convocation ceremony at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC) on Saturday, Banu was handed a special appreciation award presented by Sultanah Hajjah Kalsom Abdullah of Pahang.

When Hafiz was doing his Form 4 at a special school for the deaf, Banu realised that he would be unable to go up four floors where his classes were.

She and her husband, Mohammad Siraj Razack, then funded a series of renovations that resulted in a ground-floor store room being converted into a classroom.

They even installed a communications microphone that enabled Hafiz to communicate with his class on the fourth floor.

“After that, we realised there were three students with polio who took two hours to go up four floors to their classes and another two hours to come down.

So we got the children to use the ground floor classroom,” she said.

Now that Hafiz had finally obtained his scroll, Banu said her son’s dream remains to study for at least a semester at the Gallaudet University for the deaf in Washington, United States.

“I’m waiting for my other three daughters — Shuhaiba, Mardhiyah and Nurul — to settle down first. Maybe after that, I will follow him and help him fulfill his dream to study there,” she said. In the meantime, the family is contemplating sending Hafiz for an internship at a local broadcasting company.