27 Oct : The Centre will introduce 82,000 scholarships per annum under a new scheme for students from weaker sections for graduate, postgraduate and professional courses."The scholarships will be awarded to those who have scored a minimum of 80 per cent in 12th and belong to the non-creamy layer," said sources in the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
"Candidates taking admission in graduation, post graduation studies in colleges and universities and professional courses such as medical and engineering will benefit from it," sources added.
The scholarships titled as ‘Central sector scheme of scholarship for college and university students’ will be equally divided among boys and girls.The scholarship will be Rs 1000 per month at graduation level and university courses and Rs 2000 per month at the postgraduate level.
Students pursuing professional courses would get Rs 2000 per month in the fourth and fifth semester, sources said.The allocation of scholarships will be divided amongst the state boards based on the state’s population in the age group of 18 to 25 after segregating shares of CBSE and ICSE, sources said.Besides, the number of scholarships allotted to a board would be distributed among pass-outs of Science, Commerce and Humanities streams of the board in the ratio of 3:2:1.
12,000 secondary schools to have computer labs About 12,000 secondary schools across the country, mostly in backward regions, will be equipped with Information Communication Technology (ICT) facilities to provide training to students in the field.
Under ICT infrastructure, the schools will be provided a computer lab with at least 10 computer sets along with required software.
"This year 12,000 schools have been approved under the ICT scheme which aims to provide advanced information communication facilities to secondary schools mostly in backward blocks. The remaining secondary schools will be covered under the scheme during the 11th Plan," a senior HRD Ministry official said.
Teachers’ training and Internet connectivity are also part of the scheme. The facility will be installed by identified service providers at these schools.
The service providers will be entrusted the job of imparting training to the teachers and will also develop e-content on certain subjects which can be used during teaching.Besides, every student will become computer literate through the programme.
The teachers can also use internet for self learning and updating their knowledge in different subjects.The focus of the programme is to cover about 3400 backward blocks in the country after which it may be extended to other areas.The plan allocation for ICT scheme under the 11th Plan is Rs 6,000 crore.