Bhaktapur, August 17

Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB) today announced that it would select quake-affected students eligible for scholarship in grades XI and XII by the end of August.

Govinda Khaniya, Chief of Affiliation Division at HSEB, today said as there were numerous applicants for the scholarship, the board was selecting genuine victims. The scholarship targets students from 14 districts that were worst hit by the April 25 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. Khaniya said a total of 5,200 students had applied for the scholarship.

Every year, HSEB provides three per cent scholarship to meritorious students from community schools to study in educational institutions of their choice. Since many students were orphaned, injured, and rendered homeless due to the temblor, HSEB decided to provide separate scholarship to such students this year. It had called for applications a couple of months ago.

HSEB had formed a task force under the coordination of Gokarna Baniya, member of HSEB, to determine the category and scholarship type for quake victims. However, the taskforce is yet to submit its report even though XI classes began from August 1 and grade XII classes from July 18. Khaniya clarified that the selection process was time consuming as they wanted to provide the scholarship to genuine victims.

“Though the students have already enrolled in the colleges, scholarships and facilities will be provided to them after identifying genuine victims,” he said, adding, “Many students who can afford college fees have also applied for the scholarship by posing as quake victims, however, such students will be identified and discarded.” HSEB has categorised the scholarship recipients on the basis of damage they or their family incurred due to the quake.