Boon for Andhra SC students

HYDERABAD: In a boon to students from the SC communities, the Telugu Desam government has decided to bear the expenditure of their studies abroad up to Rs 10 lakhs.

Apart from this, the government will bear the travelling and visa expenditure of the students. The scheme, “Ambedkar Overseas Education Fund” will come into effect immediately as part of the implementation of the SC sub-plan.

Giving the details of the scheme, social welfare minister Ravela Kishore Babu said any number of students could avail the scheme.

“The AP government will release a grant of Rs 10 lakh to each student who gets admission to the colleges in UK, USA, Australia and Singapore for any two-year programme. Very soon, the assistance will be extended to one-year programmes as well,” he said.

The Telugu Desam Party government has set a target of sending at least 300 students this year, Kishore Babu said.

“We will also take up the responsibility of giving coaching to students for qualifying exams like GRE and TOEFL. We will engage reputed institutes like English and Foreign Language University (Eflu) and such others to get the students trained in writing these exams,” he added.

Stating that the programme was meant to encourage the students of scheduled castes, Kishore Babu said the scheme would help meritorious students from these communities who until now are not able to pursue higher studies abroad due to financial constraints.

“Last year, 84 students had applied for financial assistance from the government. But only 66 students, 48 from Telangana and 18 from the Andhra region, were selected under the scheme then in implementation. This year, we want to send abroad as many students as possible for higher studies. We are engaging an NGO involved in overseas education counselling to reach out to the students in all districts,” he said. Even though only four countries have been listed, chief minister Chandrababu Naidu wants to extend the programme to institutions of global repute, the minister said.

“The government will write to all government and private institutions across the state to widely publicize the scheme so that the objective of helping more poor scheduled caste students to go abroad to pursue specialized education in various fields is achieved,” Ravela Kishore Babu said.

Boon for Andhra SC students