Asha For Education Chennai Scholarships For School/ College Students

Name of the Organisation : Asha For Education (ashanet.org)
Nmae of the Scholarship : Asha Chennai Scholarships For School/ College Students
Location : Chennai

Website : http://www.ashanet.org/
Asha Chennai : ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php-p=716

Asha Trust – Asha Chennai Scholarships :
While many of the projects of Asha-Chennai focus on helping schools that educate under-privileged children, we felt there is also a need to help the under-privileged children who attend other schools and colleges spread all over the city and primarily in rural TamilNadu. In addition to providing financial assistance to these children we believe that Asha volunteers can provide role models and provide valuable mentoring to these children.

To this end the Asha Scholarships project aims to fund the school/college fees and cost of uniform and books for children from 1st standard to college (LKG and UKG in exceptional cases). The children should be from under-privileged background and be nominated by a nominator who should be an Asha volunteer or someone trusted by Asha. The nominator would play an active role in mentoring the children.

The Asha Scholarship Guidelines provides detailed criteria by which the children are chosen.

To nominate a child, you should first be actively involved in the activities of Asha Chennai. Then complete one of the following forms for each child and submit to Asha,

Scholarship Application form for new scholars

Scholarship form for continuing scholars

Asha Chennai Scholarship Rules & Guidelines :
The modifications to these rules and guidelines were made following suggestions from the Scholarship Focus Group Meeting held on June 6, 2010.

The following are the rules and guidelines that the Asha Scholarship focus group must follow in awarding scholarships to students. Rules are inviolable. Guidelines must be followed to the extent possible.

Rules :
1. All candidates must be approved by the Scholarship Focus Group before releasing payments.
2. A maximum funding limit for all students would be set by Asha Chennai and this limit would be imposed for all Asha scholars. This limit would be Rs.1000/- over the typical amount charged by a Government aided school for English medium education. (Rs.1200 would cover the cost of uniforms and shoes.) We set the limit for the different standards based on this as follows :
1st to 5th std Rs.5000
6th to 8th std Rs.6000
9th and 10th std Rs.8000
11th and 12th Rs.10000

Post secondary (college, technical education, IT, nursing etc) Rs.15000 (12000 + 3000 interest free loan)

Note : This limit does not apply for handicapped students requiring special assistance.

3.We would use the following yardstick to determine whether to give the money to the students as grant or loan :
** under Rs 12,000 – Grant
** over Rs 12,000 — Our recommendation would be to work with a local bank to obtain a loan for the student. Asha will pay the margin money and interest for the period of the education as required. For some reason if the amount we pay is over Rs.12,000 it is considered Interest free Honour loan (For our accounts these will be treated just as grants and money received back from the students would be treated as donations.)

Note : the cases where Asha pays more than 12,000/- to a student are:
** where the margin amount plus interest for the bank loan is over Rs.12,000
** Where there is a SAC donor for the student willing to bear the entire cost for the student.

5. Selection criteria for the total scholars (100%) is as follows :
** 40% for pre and post secondary education
** 60% for college and post secondary education (priority for vocational and industrial training)
** 60% candidates further split to 40% urban and 60% rural

6. There should be a genuine and verified economic need for the scholar and his/her family. Total family income should be Rs.10,000 per month or less.

7. Each scholar should have completed a Scholarship Request Application Form or Scholarship Continuation Form (in case of continuing scholars) at the time of disbursement of funds.

8. Loan Guarantee Form must be signed before releasing the payment for post secondary education scholars availing a total Rs.15,000.

9. Nominator should not in anyway benefit monetarily from the scholarship.

10. The nominator should be responsible for the mentoring of the children.

11. Nominators should be Asha volunteers or should be individuals or members of organisations that Asha can trust and must sign the application form.

12. Nominators should be able to provide periodic reviews on the progress of their nominees to Asha-Chennai (i.e., progress report from the school, qualitative assessment of progress etc.).

13. Proper Fees Paid Receipt must be produced before releasing payment. No payment should be paid in advance. (Nominator shall assist in approved cases – optional). Asha would like to obtain original Bills for all expenses. However we recognise that there are genuine circumstances where that is not possible. In such cases the nominator should write a letter certifying the validity of the expense and giving the details as to what those expenses were.

14. The Asha Scholarship focus group shall also meet and personally mentor and assess the children at least twice a year.

Guidelines :
1. Children going to government schools should be given higher priority.
2. Primary focus should be for school students in 8th standard and above. Other children 1st standard to college would be considered for case by case selection only under exceptional situation.
3. All outstation scholars should come for Scholarship Focus Group Meeting (Asha’s expense) at least once a year and subsequent meeting can be through the web.
4. Amount exceeding Rs.1000 shall be paid only by cheque (primary including)
5. The nominators are responsible for obtaining bills and other necessary documents from the scholars. Failing to produce the above shall lead to delay/withdrawal of 2nd disbursement.
6. Not more than 10% of the scholars shall be from the same nominator. In cases where the focus group determines that the nominator does not or cannot fulfill their responsibilities, the focus group itself can be the nominator.
7. Preference should be given to handicapped children and girls.
8. Reference letter from the principal of the school or college would be highly desired.
9. Site visit should be done to the homes and schools of the children and the person doing the site visit should not be the nominator.
10. Asha scholarships group should try their best to pay the schools directly.
11. Other than exceptional cases (like Tamil medium student moving to English medium school) Asha should avoid paying for out-of-school tuitions. Tution fees will be allowed upon due consideration by the Scholarship Focus Group.
12. Encourage and promote diversity among the nominees (i.e. skill, religion, gender, socio-economic …)
13. Only one child per family shall be accepted for scholarship. Nominator should submit a one page essay on the basis for nominating the child. Academic excellence should not be a criteria of selection for children under 10th standard.
14. All payment vouchers must be countersigned by the Steward in order to be valid.