School students from different districts will showcase their knowledge on science and technology during the Bihar Divas celebrations.

The department of science and technology would award the students, who come up with the best projects.

Bihar Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad is organising the competition under Inspire, a scheme of the department, which provides scholarships to students to promote an interest in science and technology.

Neeraj Kumar, one of the organisers, said: “Ten students from each of the 38 districts of Bihar have been chosen from various government and private schools to be part of the Inspire Award competition. The students who come up with the best ideas will also get a chance to participate in Inspire’s national-level competition.”

The students are divided into two categories — upper primary, comprising students from classes VI to VII and secondary, comprising students from classes IX and X. On the programme, Neeraj said: “Besides the science projects, there will also be quiz and debate competitions. An open interaction will also be organised between students and experts. The students will arrive tomorrow.”

On the awards, he said: “The winners will be given awards in cash and kind and the selected students will participate in the national-level competition. One competition will be organised on each of three days and the names of the winners will be declared at the end of the event. Every year, around 10 lakh students of classes VI to X from government and private schools are selected by the Union government under the Inspire Award scheme. These students are provided scholarships of Rs 5,000 each.”

He added that the scholarship aims at generating an interest in science among students at the grassroots-level so that they pursue it for their higher studies and research work