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Decades old paltry Sanskrit scholarship in UP has few takers now
The amount of scholarship ( ₹50 for Purva Madhyama and ₹60 for Uttar Madhyma) is so small that today it is insufficient to buy even a good register, say Sanskrit teachers and students alike
Amid talks of promoting study of Sanskrit in Uttar Pradesh, a dedicated scholarship started to promote Sanskrit education among school students has over the years become virtually redundant with hardly any meritorious student ready to even apply for this five decades old scholarship.
The amount of scholarship ( ₹50 for Purva Madhyama and ₹60 for Uttar Madhyma) is so small that today it is insufficient to buy even a good register, say Sanskrit teachers and students alike.
State education department officials say annually a budget of mere ₹1.5 lakh is released for disbursement of this scholarship to students across the state. However, for 2021-22 session, the government had released ₹2 lakh. But with very few takers, mere ₹20,000 could be utilised in 2020-21 and just ₹50,000 in 2021-22 session, they added.
This scholarship scheme was started in 1968 for meritorious students studying Sanskrit in secondary schools of the state. Under this, scholarships are given to deserving and talented students for the purpose of maintaining interest in studying Sanskrit and encourage them to pursue higher education in the subject. On the basis of merit list received from Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, Varanasi, funds are given by Inspector of Sanskrit schools, UP.
“This scholarship is given for 11 months a year to selected meritorious students of secondary schools. However, with mere ₹50 and ₹60 per month as financial support, the students and their parents shy away from applying for it. Even teachers are not very enthusiastic as the entire process of selecting a student for the award of this scholarship is cumbersome,” said Shambhunath Tripathi, a retired principal of Triveni Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya, Daraganj in Prayagraj.
Teacher MLC (Allahabad-Jhansi division) Suresh Kumar Tripathi said the state government’s claims of promoting Sanskrit education in the state seemed limited to papers and files. “This scholarship meant for meritorious secondary school students studying Sanskrit needs to be significantly hiked to make it relevant and actually contribute towards promoting Sanskrit education in the state,” he said.
Though state education department officials are reluctant to comment on the issue as hiking the scholarship amount and sanctioning the budget for it is state government’s prerogative. But they did claim that a proposal to hike the Sanskrit education scholarship significantly was on the cards.
