Incentive to Study

Sherine David SA

During my recent field visit to one of the worst affected Tsunami affected community in Cuddalore District, Tamil Nadu, I came across one interesting case. It's about a lady of 31 years age, having two kids approached me for assisting her to include her children in the PMNRF scheme for monthly assistance of Rs. 300/-. This scheme is offered to the kids education who are directly affected by Tsunami and the assistance will be given to the kids till they reach 10th Std. The report is that her husband, who is the age group of 33-37 years is suffering from long term illness and the symptoms are continous health problem, loss of weight, shortness of breath, fatigue. He is under treatment and the doctor had said that his health condition is too worse and his survival days are some months only. This lady is also suffering from brain Tumour (as per her version) underwent laser treatment, lost all her hair and is counting her days. Both her children, younger one 5 years old studying in 1st Std and elder one 8 years old studying 4th Std are being educated in Matriculation School, where they need to pay school monthly fees. The children seem to be too bright. But they are not eligible for this assistance as they are not from the Tsunami affected community. The lady is worried about her children future. The lady was finally referred to a Child Welfare NGO working in that District for further follow up actions.

The Scheme offered for the Tsunami affected children education by the Central Government is a welcome one. The parents who are in dilemma of sending their children to fishing are now enrolling their children in schools for the incentive provided by the government for their kids education.

I feel that this could be adopted as one of the alternate way to reach the target of "Education for all" by Sarva Siksha Abhiyan Programme. They could concentrate on vulnerable groups such as scheduled tribe, scheduled caste with this concept of incentive to children for education. This is one way in which we could achieve the vision 2020 as said by our Hon'ble president Mr. Abdul Kalam. If we could draw the proper procedure to apply this education incentive scheme, I think we could achieve the target of providing basic education for our next generation. And as we all know, the education will be the key factor to open the eyes of larger degeneration of our society.