New Delhi, June 2 (PTI): Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Virendra Kumar will on Friday launch residential school scheme for scheduled caste students with an aim to provide quality education to them in reputed private schools.
The Scheme for Residential Education for Students in High Schools in Targeted Areas (SRESHTA) has been formulated by the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry with an aim to provide quality education and opportunities to even the poorest SC students, as per the Constitutional mandate.
The SRESHTA has been conceived to provide access to high quality residential education to the meritorious poor students from scheduled caste community, whose parental annual income is up to Rs 2.5 lakh per annum, at free of cost from classes 9 to 12.
Under the scheme, each year approximately 3,000 meritorious SC students from across states/UTs will be selected through a transparent mechanism of a National Entrance Test for SRESHTA (NETS), conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), the ministry said in a statement.
Selected students will be admitted to the best private residential schools, affiliated to CBSE, in classes 9 and 11 for completion of education till 12th standard.
Thereafter, the students may be connected to Post Metric Scholarship Scheme or Top Class Education Scheme of the ministry to continue their further studies with adequate financial aid from the government.
The ministry, through a committee with representatives of Ministry of Education, CBSE and finance division of the department, has selected the best performing private residential schools based on certain parameters, the statement said.