Bhubaneswar, June 17: The state government is planning to set up a separate council to streamline the process of awarding scholarships to meritorious students.

At present, scholarships are given to the students by departments such as higher education, school and mass education, ST and SC development, and technical education.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today directed chief secretary Gokul Chandra Pati to examine the proposal for constructing a council exclusively for awarding scholarships. He issued the instructions at a meeting, presided over by him, to review the performance of the higher education department.

It was also decided that two scholarships would be instituted to encourage meritorious Plus Two and Plus Three students.

One scholarship will be named after Fakir Mohan Senapati, the doyen of modern Odia literature, will be awarded to students scoring more than 80 per cent marks in Odia. This move aims to encourage the students, as they are not faring well in their mother tongue.

Another scholarship, to be named after scientist Pranakrishna Parija, will be given to the students who will secure more than 80 per cent marks in Plus Two and Plus Three examinations in science, arts and commerce streams.

"We are keen to encourage students and to enhance their performances," said higher education minister Pradeep Panigrahy.

Poor performance of Odia students in national level competitive examinations has become a matter of concern among educationists. Only 3,400 students from Odisha have qualified for JEE (Advanced) examination this time.

Similarly, only 80 students have scored more than 90 per cent marks in the Plus Two examination, conducted by the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Odisha.

"We are worried about falling standards of education, both technical as well as general. Even the standards of Odia language among students seems to be plummeting," said eminent educationist S.N. Mohanty.

The chief minister also laid stress on production of quality PhD theses by the state universities. He suggested incentives for students whose theses appear in any of the 400 universities ranked from world over by the Time magazine.

The state government is also laying emphasis on girl education with Patnaik asking officials at the meeting to identify 50 educationally backward blocks and make provision for special scholarships for students in these areas.

It was also decided to construct an additional 20,000 hostels across the state in addition to the existing 6,000. The government also decided to extend soft loan facilities to more and more technical students.

The state government is planning to improve the educational standards at the school level.

Yesterday, the state government had decided to carry forward the programme for establishment of model schools on the model of Kendriya Vidyalayas in all 314 blocks of the state by constituting a society for the purpose. In the first phase, 111 model schools have been sanctioned and another 51 in the second phase.

The state's development commissioner has been assigned the task of regularly monitoring the progress in the establishment of such schools.

The chief minister also suggested setting up of a Teacher Recruitment Board to expedite the recruitment process to fill up existing vacancies. More than 40,000 posts of teachers are lying vacant in government schools across the state for the last four years.