Two new scholarships for NIT students approved

The government will provide a tuition fee waiver to meritorious students and special scholarship to students belonging to scheduled caste and tribes and other backward classes who take admission in the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) from the next academic year.

The government will provide a tuition fee waiver to meritorious students and special scholarship to students belonging to scheduled caste and tribes and other backward classes who take admission in the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) from the next academic year.

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An in-principle approval for these two types of scholarships was taken at an NIT council meeting on Friday headed by HRD minister Kapil Sibal.

In the first scholarship, there will be a tuition fee waiver on grade basis for students who are ranked in the top bracket of the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) conducted by the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) who take admission in NITs. The second scholarship will be exclusively for SC/ST and OBC students who get admission in NITs.

The council has also agreed to an alternate system of admission based on national aptitude testing which will begin from 2013 and is expected to end dependence on coaching centers and align the admission system with the class XII syllabus.

“There was a consensus in the council that this proposal envisages an alternate judicious mix of school and national test level performance and it will usher an alternate admission system,” an HRD ministry statement said.

The council also decided to introduce a four-tier flexibility system for faculty appointment as exists in the IITs.