FOR BETTER FUTURE

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 27: The state government has decided to include various scholarship schemes of the higher education department in the common prospectus issued at the time of admission.

This would help in generating awareness about the schemes among students.

The National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation (NHFDC) gives scholarships to assist disabled students to pursue higher studies. The state government also awards an annual scholarship of Rs 10,000 to meritorious students pursuing professional education in the fields of engineering, medicine and dentistry.

This scholarship is made available to students who are permanent residents of the state and have passed the qualifying examination from an educational institution located within the state. Also, to be eligible for this scholarship, the students’ annual parental income should not exceed Rs 2,50,000. At a meeting chaired by chief secretary Bijay Pattnaik, it was decided that the number of scholarship awards and their value would be posted on the website of the department of higher education for wider publicity of the schemes.

The chief secretary said a credit card system in collaboration with the State Bank of India might be used for disbursement of the scholarships. Issues such as revision of the science syllabus and remodelling of the examination pattern conducted by Orissa’s Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) to make it similar to the CBSE pattern were also discussed at the meeting.

In order to make the admission process simpler and to reduce the rush of application for certificates at the tehsil level, the department of higher education was advised to do away with filing of various certificates such as resident certificate, income certificate, and caste certificate at the time of filling application for admission. At the meeting, it was also suggested that simpler alternatives to these documents could be used.