NEC sponsorship for 23 Northeast students


Shillong, July 2: These 23 students may hail from below poverty line families living in nondescript villages of the eight northeastern states. But they have cleared a competitive written examination and earned a seat in the picturesque Assam Rifles Public School, located at Laitkor, around 16 km from here.

Sponsored by the North Eastern Council to study in the school, these 23 students — three each from the Seven Sister states and two from Sikkim — have literally received a new lease of life.

The school will enrol 23 students every year for the next five years and the NEC will continue to support the sponsored students till they pass the Matric exam. Repeaters, however, will not be sponsored for the second year in the same class.

The total annual financial implication for the NEC is Rs 91,700 per child.

Assam Rifles selected the students through its centres at Kohima, Imphal, Gangtok, Agartala, Aizawl, Lekhapani, Silchar and Guwahati where written tests were conducted.

Following the written tests, 23 students were selected to study in the school for the academic year (2011-12).

“It was in 2009 that the then director-general of Assam Rifles, Lt Gen. K.S. Yadava, suggested that the NEC could sponsor less-privileged children to study in the school, as there was excess capacity,” NEC secretary U.K. Sangma said today at the Assam Rifles headquarters during a programme in which Union DONER minister B.K.

Handique formally inaugurated the sponsored education programme.

He said the council decided to embark on the pilot project from this academic year onwards following Yadava’s suggestion.

Admitting that advertisements for the sponsored programme was not up to the mark, he said the maximum number of applicants came from families in Manipur.

“If this pilot project proves to be successful, we will continue with it for the times to come,” he added.

The programme was taken up with the vision and hope that many deserving students, who otherwise could not afford it, could get access to world class education that would shape their future and enable them to give back to the community some of the benefits they acquire.

Handique hailed the pilot project, which would be of immense help to less privileged children, while stressing on the need to cater to victims of violence.

“Providing help to children who are victims of violence is a social challenge as they have to suffer the traumatic experience where dreams are nipped in the bud. We should pick up those children and send them to a school of this (Assam Rifles Public School) standard,” he said.

The Union minister, who is also the NEC chairman, said the nation would progress if help was provided to victims of violence, especially children.

Instituted in 1980, the Assam Rifles Public School, which follows the Central Board of School Education syllabus, has 650 students. Of these, 10 students are from Bangladesh.