Scholarships to be linked to student performance

Vijayawada: Minister for Social Welfare Ravela Kishore Babu said the government was so far blindly giving scholarships to colleges and students without assessing their performance and it would not happen from the next academic year.

He made it clear the educational institutions and students must perform better from the next academic year in order to get fee reimbursement and scholarships from the State government.

He was addressing a workshop on the post-matric scholarships here on Wednesday conducted for students, college principals, officials of the Social Welfare department.

“We are making students and colleges irresponsible by paying crores of rupees scholarships without evaluating the performance and this system must be changed,” the Minister said.

The State government issued GO 103 to improve the quality of the educational institutions and students in the State, he said and added that it has been decided to link scholarships to the performance of the students and efforts were on to change the software for effective implementation of the new policy.

Kishore Babu said biometric system will be introduced in all educational institutions from the next academic year to get the accurate details of attendance of the students in colleges and universities.

The Minister said the government was focusing on transparency and reducing corruption in educational institutions, which are getting crores of rupees in the form of scholarships.

Stating that the government was doing harm to the students by sanctioning scholarships without evaluating their performance, merit and attendance, he said now the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu was insisting that the government must do justice to the students and improve their academic performance by assessing their academic progress, attendance and marks.

The Minister asked the officials of the Social Welfare department to get computer literate so that they can get information about the colleges, performance and effective supervision of the educational institutions.

He said the officials have no option but to get computer knowledge to find the faults in the administration and better control of their department.