The Hindu : New Delhi News : Now a handbook on scholarships

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Tuesday, Jul 27, 2010
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New Delhi

Now a handbook on scholarships

Madhur Tankha

Aga Khan Foundation comes up with a directory on schemes

A volunteer at the Aga Khan Foundation teaching children at Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI: To give socially and economically marginalised communities a chance to access information on government scholarships, the Aga Khan Foundation has published a directory on financial support schemes for school education in the country.

The directory, “Scholarships and Financial Assistance Schemes for School Education in India”, has been published in the interest of a large number of eligible and deserving children who are unable to take advantage of these schemes because they do not know about them.

“Even schools and education officials are not well informed on details about scholarships. The result has been under-utilisation of these scholarships and allocated budgets,” says AKF CEO Rowland Roome.

The directory basically is an attempt to fill this information gap. It publicises numerous scholarships, financial assistance schemes and incentives set up by the Union Government and seven State governments to help ease the burden of the financial costs of school level education (Class I to XII).

The directory has been produced with support from the Canadian International Development Agency.

While information on financial support schemes is publicly available, its communication is generally scattered through various channels such as websites, newspapers and circulars that are difficult for remote and under-developed schools and communities to access. For the first time, the directory pools information about these schemes under one cover.

To reach out to people living inaccessible areas of the country, AKF plans to share the directory with non-government organisations working in the field of education.

It seeks to fund organisations and key education department officials at district and sub-district levels to spur wider dissemination of scholarships and schemes for school education.

“We hope this directory will serve as a handbook to students, parents, schools, education department officials and all stakeholders in school education,” says Mr. Roome.

The publication of the directory is part of larger education programmes undertaken by the Foundation, the Aga Khan Education Services and other agencies of the Aga Khan Development Network.

For over two decades the AKF has supported school improvement programmes targeting early childhood development through elementary education.

The growing AKDN area development programmes include education activities relevant to the needs and opportunities of socially and economically marginalised children living in Nizamuddin Basti in Delhi.

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