Students outside a school in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 7: The regional office of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) here has urged all the schools in the state to encourage girl students of Classes XI and XII to apply for its Udaan project by October 20.

The project, an initiative of the ministry of human resource development and the CBSE board, is aimed at giving supplementary training in science and mathematics to girls at senior secondary level. This would help them to prepare for admission tests for premier engineering colleges in the country.

“The CBSE is providing free online resources to girl students. The effort is to address the low enrolment of girls in engineering education,” said the regional director A.S. Verma.

“The coaching will reduce the quality gap between school curriculum and the requirements of the engineering entrance examination. The schools must take advantage of the facility,” Verma said.

The state has nearly 250 CBSE schools, in which the ratio between boys and girls is 60:40. This year, 32,349 boys took the matriculation exam as against 22,572 girls. The girls had fared better than the boys.

Verma said that girl students from other boards such as ICSE and the CHSE could also take advantage of the Udaan facility.

A total of 1,000 girl students in the current session will be selected.

While 500 girl students selected will be from the open category and the remaining 500 will be from the SC, ST and backward class.

Special features

It is fee of cost

Preparatory material available online

Tutorials, videos, study materials will be provided

Contact classes in offline format

Tablets provided with preloaded content to allow 24x7 learning

Orientation session on using technology will be given to selected students

Assessments designed to provide useful feedback on learning, leading to accrual of points

Remedial steps to ensure right learning

Peer learning and mentoring opportunity for meritorious students leading to accrual of additional points

Students will be eligible for financial assistance if they get admission into the IIT and NIT colleges

Student helpline to clarify doubts, monitor learning of students and provide tech support

Constant monitoring and tracking of students’ progress with feedback to parents

Eligibility criteria

Girl enrolled in Class XI and XII in physics, chemistry, mathematics (PCM) stream in any board in India are eligible to apply

Preference will be given to students from financially weaker section where the combined family income is less than Rs 6 lakh per annum for general and backward class candidates

Students will be selected on merit basis. Class XI students should have minimum 70 per cent marks overall and 80 per cent marks in science and maths in the Class X examination. Where cumulative grades are used, a student should have secured eight points in CGPA and a score of nine in science and mathematics. For Class XII students, in addition to the Class X criteria, they should have secured a minimum of 75 per cent marks in PCM in Class XI.

What you have to do?

Fill up the form in the format given in the website www.cbseacademic.in or send in applications at the address below latest by the 20th of October, 2014:

Central Board of Secondary Education

4th Floor, Shiksha Sadan,

17 Rouse Avenue,

New Delhi 110002

You can also apply to the CBSE city co-ordinators