- Aneesha Bedi, Hindustan Times, Chandigarh | Updated: Jul 20, 2016 14:06 IST
The Union ministry of human resource and development (MHRD) has lauded Chandigarh’s performance on implementation of a scholarship scheme for economically weaker section students and on girls’ education.
In a video conference held to review two centrally-sponsored schemes for school education on Monday, the MHRD secretary said Chandigarh’s performance ‘had set an example for other union territories.’
The video conference was organised to review the National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS) and the National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education (NSIGSE) for 2016-17.
MHRD secretary SC Kuntia appreciated city’s performance over other Union Territories. Confirming the development, nodal officer for the two schemes in Chandigarh, Bikram Rana, said, “We had gathered the data and presented it to the authorities which reflected the total number of beneficiaries and the number of girl children who had bank accounts as well as Aadhaar cards in their names.”
Director school education (DSE), Rubinderjit Singh Brar, said, “It is a positive outcome and we will continue to strive higher for girl child education. As for Aadhaar cards, we had worked on it for some time and it shows.”
How schemes work
The National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education was introduced to promote girl child’s enrolment in 14-18 years age group at secondary stage, who pass Class 8 and subsequently drop out under duress of socio-economic reasons.
The scheme aims to retain such girl children up to and after Class 8. For this, the states and UTs are given guidelines to establish an enabling environment to reduce dropouts and promote the enrolment of girl child belonging to SC/ST communities in secondary schools. A sum of `3,000 is deposited in a public sector bank/post office in the name of every girl child. On the basis of this data, the beneficiary would have to continue her study at least for two years in the secondary school after her enrolment in Class 9. The video conferencing revealed that in Chandigarh, 465 benefitted in the last year.
The National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme (NMMSS) was launched in May, 2008. The objective of the scheme is to award scholarships to meritorious students of economically weaker sections, thus arrest their drop out at Class 8. Scholarship of `6,000 per annum (`500 per month) per student is awarded to selected students every year for study in Classes 9 to 12 in State government, government aided and local body schools. In this scheme, the number of beneficiaries were 265 in 2016-17.