BHAKTAPUR: Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB) officials are in a dilemma about granting scholarship to earthquake-affected students of grade XI and XII after applications for  scholarship far exceeded their expectation.

Every year, HSEB provides 3 per cent scholarship to hardworking and meritorious students from community schools to study in institutional schools of their choice. HSEB conducted the examination and announced the result last week.

Due to the devastating earthquake on April 25 and the frequent aftershocks, many students were orphaned, many lost their homes and suffered injury therefore HSEB had decided to provide separate scholarship this year to those students who were affected by quake.

HSEB had called for scholarship applications from students of 14 most-affected districts. It had said any student with documents that proved they were quake victims could apply for scholarship, but when the number of such students went up, officials decided to select those most affected by the quake.

HSEB had formed a taskforce under the coordination of Gokarna Baniya, member of HSEB to determine the category of the victim and the scholarship type to be provided.

The taskforce is yet to submit its report to the HSEB.

Hira Acharya, acting joint secretary, Planning and Evaluation Division, HSEB who is also a member of the taskforce said that since the number of applicants outnumbered their expectation, they were busy selecting the real victims from among the applicants.

She said that around 5,500 SLC graduates and grade XI graduates have applied for scholarship in grade XI and XII but many of them are not real victims though they have produced papers to verify it.

“Many students are living a standard life in Kathmandu and their parents are earning handsome salary while their old uninhabited house in remote village were destroyed by the quake. Many such students have applied for scholarship as quake victims,” Acharya said adding, “Such students will not be eligible for scholarship as granting them scholarship will amount to misuse.”

HSEB is planning to provide scholarship with residential facilities to students who were orphaned by the quake, scholarship without residential facilities to students who lost either their father or mother and certain per cent scholarship in tuition fee to students whose houses were damaged by the quake. Students who have severe injuries will also get scholarship.

“We don’t want to misuse scholarships meant for quake affected students, therefore we are thoroughly scanning the eligible and ineligible students,” she added.

Classes for grade XII began from July 18 while classes of grade XI are scheduled to begin from August 1. HSEB will be giving the final list of scholarship awardees by this week, said Acharya

source: the himalayan times,27 july 2015