NOIDA: Son of a schoolteacher, 12-year-old Astitva Anand will no longer have to cycle every day from his village to a city school or worry about how his family will shoulder the financial stress of a private school education. The resident of Pabarsa village near Meerut who claimed to have scored over 99% in Class VIII is one of the meritorious girls and boys who can now study in premier CBSE-affiliated residential schools across the country under the central government's flagship scheme, SHRESTHA.
Schedule caste students whose parental annual income is not more than Rs 2.5 lakh per annum are eligible to apply for the scheme. According to the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, which is steering the Scheme for Residential Education in High Schools in Targeted Areas, or SHRESTHA, around 3,000 SC students will be selected each year through a national entrance test.
The selected students will be admitted in private, CBSE-affiliated residential schools in classes IX and XI for completion of education till Class XII. So far, 177 schools have been identified under the scheme.
The scholarship will include school fees and hostel and mess charges. This will be released in one instalment to the schools. The annual amount has been fixed at Rs 1 lakh for Class IX, Rs 1.10 lakh (Class X), Rs 1.25 lakh (Class XI) and Rs 1.35 lakh (Class XII)
Anand is now looking forward to joining Class IX in a renowned residential school in Ghaziabad. Anjali Singh from Faridabad, who will join Class XI in another school, was happy she was getting access to quality education, “her window to the world”. She said that despite being meritorious, she felt that her government school was not delivering the outcomes she wanted and she had, therefore, decided to sit for the SHRESTHA entrance exam.
For Manthan, 13, cracking the entrance exam promises a new beginning. The 13-year-old sat for the exam after the private school he was studying as an economically weaker section student till Class VIII asked his father to pay fees from Class IX.
These stories of young minds dreaming of opportunities through quality education unfolded at an event at M Balika Inter College in Noida where girl and boy students came together to mark the launch of the first batch of students selected under SHRESTHA.
Union minister for social justice and empowerment Virendra Kumar revealed that during his interaction with the selected students, he found the hardships their families were facing hadn’t deterred them from aspiring to become IAS officers, software engineers and to help others rise. "The intention of this scheme is to provide the needed support so that economic deprivation does not come in the way of the dreams of these children," Kumar said.
