OK, so some of your friends (or maybe you) have flunked a grade at some point or took a little longer than you planned with college but ... 44 years? Vegetable stand or no, it is hard to imagine being so busy with work that you simply cannot study enough to pass secondary school exams. But one man has had precisely this problem:
A 65 year-old-man from Kanpur city in India is taking his secondary school exams for the 44th time, hoping this time he'll finally pass. Undeterred by 43 years of trying without success, Mian Jabbar Husen is determined to make yet another attempt.
Hayley Platt reports in this Reuters video clip: Link
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.
I'd be willing to bet that a "secondary" certificate there, is more like an associates degree here.
And the reason why people learn so fast is because these things are introduced as a child while the brain is still developing. It's hard to pick up a different language after a certain age, and likewise it is difficult to learn these things at a certain age.