The Department of General Education of the Kerala Government has come out with a strange notification that the students who are yet to get scholarship amounts of that prestigious Lower Secondary Scholarship (LSS) and the Upper Secondary Scholarship (USS) examinations for the last four years need to submit a detailed application for the same.
And the circular mentions an unrealistic deadline. It has directed the scholarship winners to file the requests through their headmasters by Saturday (Feb 25), failing which they won’t be provided with the scholarships.
The headmaster is to ensure the authenticity of the request made within this time.
Earlier, bank accounts and other details of the students were collected several times, apparently to give them the scholarship dues, teachers and students said. Yet, the State Government remained non-committal on a time frame for settling the dues, for which it needed over Rs 8 crore.
The Education Department is waiting for the mercy of the Finance Department to extend the pending scholarship amount to the students who have proved their worth in the examinations conducted by the State Government.
The scholarship amount is pending since the 2019-20 academic year. Those passing the 4th standard LSS exam are awarded Rs 1,000 and those qualifying in the 7th standard USS exam get Rs 1,500 as part of the scholarship for the next three years.
Though the Kerala Pareeksha Bhavan officials are stating that this year's scholarship exam will be held next month, the notification is yet to be issued. Normally, the examination is held in February.