I was an irresponsible student: Obama

Obama said that as a young child, he used to wake up every day at 4.30-5.00 am for studies while they were living abroad so that he can keep pace with the American education system. He said his mother understood the importance of education in one's life.

"We lived overseas for a time, but my mother emphasised even when I was six, seven, eight years old, that education is your ticket in life. And because I was living overseas, she was worried that I'd fall behind," Obama told an audience in Tennessee where he delivered a major policy speech on education.

"So she used to wake me up before sunrise to do my correspondence courses, to make sure I was keeping up with my American schooling, before I went to school over there. And if you're seven and eight and you're waking up at 4:30 am-5:00 am in the morning, you don't feel real good," the President said amid a round of laughter from the audience.

Obama said he did not enjoy getting up early and used to complain about it. “I wasn’t happy. And so I'd grumble and complain. And my mother would say, "Listen, this is no picnic for me either, buster". But she understood that if her son, and later her daughter, my sister, got a good education, even if we didn't have a lot, then the world would open up to us," the US president said.

Referring to the students present at the venue, Obama said he was not very different than a lot of the people who were there. "Except probably I was more irresponsible," he said.

"I was raised by a single mom, with the help of my grandmother and my grandfather. We didn't have a lot of money and sometimes my mom was struggling because she was raising two kids and also trying to go to school herself.