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Dimapur, March 15 (EMN): The pre-matric scholarship scheme has achieved its objectives ‘to a large extent’ as it has ‘reached the most deprived in the minorities,’ even ‘raising their demand for school education,’ and reducing financial burden on parents, the central education authorities have maintained.
The ministry of Minority Affairs reports that the ministry has been implementing various schemes for socio-economic, educational empowerment of six centrally ‘notified’ minorities.
The Press Information Bureau’s report published on March 13 states the details of funds allocation and expenditure incurred as part of the pre-matric, post-matric, and merit-means based scholarship schemes during the past three years ie., 2016-17 to 2018-19 and the current year. The components are stated in table 1.
Evaluation Studies of pre-matric, post-matric, and merit-means based scholarship schemes have been carried out by an independent agency, M/s Research & Development Initiative in 2013-14, it stated.
The report maintained that the pre-matric scholarship scheme has been able to achieve its objectives to a large extent as it had ‘reached the most deprived in the minorities, raised their demand for school education, reduced the financial burden of poor parents, enabled most children to stay through school education, and improve their performance levels.’
‘The post-matric scholarship scheme has been also able to achieve its objectives to a large extent as it has reached the most deprived in the minorities, raised their demand for higher secondary and higher education; somewhat reduced the financial burden of poor parents.
‘Similarly, the merit-cum-means based scholarship scheme has been able to achieve its objectives by reaching the most deprived in the minorities, raised their demand for technical and professional education; somewhat reduced the financial burden of poor parents; enabled a large proportion of beneficiaries to stay through their technical/professional course; improved their performance levels.’
It also observed that the schemes have contributed significantly towards long-term objectives of empowering minorities through education.
The aforesaid three scholarship schemes for minorities are proposed for continuation beyond 2019-20. As such, all aspects including raising the number and amount of scholarships or otherwise are to be looked into by the ministry during the process of approval of these schemes for such period.
The merit-means based scholarship scheme awarded/sanctioned during the past three years for Nagaland was INR 1267 (2016-17, scholarship awarded); INR 1228 (2017-2018, scholarship awarded); and INR 1186 (2018-19, scholarship sanctioned).
The pre-matric scholarship scheme awarded/sanctioned during the past three years for Nagaland was INR 16718 (2016-17, scholarship awarded); INR 23459 (2017-2018, scholarship awarded); and INR 28156 (2018-19, scholarship sanctioned).
The post-matric scholarship scheme awarded/sanctioned during the past three years for Nagaland was INR 3676 (2016-17, scholarship awarded); INR 5520 (2017-18, scholarship awarded); and INR 4360 scholarship sanctioned.
The provisional data for the aforesaid three scholarship schemes are as on March 6 2020 and the disbursement of scholarship for 2018-19 continues in 2019-20, the report stated.