The government has defended its decision to keep the prestigious National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) scholarship suspended since 2021-22 by saying it is under a “comprehensive review”.
Jayant Chaudhary, the minister of state for education, recently informed Parliament that the review was initiated after a third-party evaluation of the National Talent Search Scheme (NTSS).
Under the scheme, 2,000 Class X students used to get the scholarship every year following a two-stage exam — the first conducted at the state level as an elimination round and the second organised by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for final selection.
The selected students were eligible for the scholarship till they completed their PhD. Each meritorious student used to get ₹1,250 per month in Class XI and XII and ₹2,000 at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The PhD scholarship amount was determined by the rates set by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for its Junior Research Fellowship.
The NTSE for 2020-21 was last held in October 2021. In December 2021, the NCERT issued a notice stating that the exam for 2021-22 had been postponed for administrative reasons.
On August 20, 2025, Congress’s Rajya Sabha member Rajani Ashokrao Patil asked the government to clarify when the NTSE would be resumed and if feedback was taken from state governments, educationists and students before discontinuing the scholarship.
In a written reply, Chaudhary said the scheme was undergoing a comprehensive review following a third-party evaluation.
“A third-party evaluation report on the NTSS, prepared based on consultation with parents, teachers, schools, NTSE awardees and other stakeholders, was submitted by the NCERT to this department in February 2021. The evaluation report and ensuing examination revealed several limitations in the scheme design and its implementation such as persistent under-representation of rural areas, girls and certain states among scholarship awardees, lack of access to examination centres due to long travel distance, insufficiency of financial assistance, ineffective nurturance and inadequate dissemination of the scheme.
“Consequently, the scheme and its major components are undergoing comprehensive review in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and to address key limitations constraining its effectiveness, impact and reach,” the minister said.
Rajesh Jha, a faculty member at Rajdhani College under Delhi University (DU), said that the third-party evaluation and comprehensive review were no justification for suspending such a prestigious scholarship.
“If there were anomalies, they should have been corrected. But such an important scholarship should not be discontinued. This shows the government is not interested in the scholarship,” Jha said.
In the last 10 years, the government has discontinued scholarships such as the Maulana Azad National Fellowship, the National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education and the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana.
The scholarship schemes whose scope has been limited include the Pre-Matric Scholarship for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
The UGC awards the JRF to the top scorers of the National Eligibility Test (NET) to help them pursue research. However, two research scholars at Jawaharlal Nehru University recently complained about the erratic payment of the scholarship amount despite submitting the claim forms to the university every month.
Delay concern
The parliamentary standing committee on education, headed by Congress Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh, has raised concern about the neglect of the scholarship schemes.
Asked by the panel about the delay in the release of the JRF amount, the government attributed it to the late submission of claims by the institutions.
“It observes that the current process, with its requirement for a monthly submission of claims, may be unnecessarily bureaucratic, given that most recipients are due a fellowship of two years. It accordingly recommends that the ministry may further streamline the process by which fellowships are claimed,” the committee said.
The education ministry runs a National Means Cum Merit Scholarship under which one lakh students of Class IX with an annual family income below ₹3.5 lakh
are awarded scholarships every year.
The committee said ₹12,000 per annum as the scholarship amount was very low in view of inflationary trends and should be increased to ₹36,000. The panel also called for a
relaxation in the family income ceiling criterion in view of inflation.
Jha said the rigid income-linked eligibility criterion deprived many needy students of scholarships. The criterion should be linked to inflation, it said.