Government launches Shreshta scheme to provide quality education to SC students

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has launched the 'Scheme for Residental Education for Students in High School in Targeted Areas' (SHRESHTA). The scheme aims to advance education and uplift the socio-economic status of scheduled castes.

As per the official statement the main objectives of this initiative is to increase the reach of government development programmes and close service gaps in regions of the education sector that are mostly populated by SC populations.

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The scheme will select around 3,000 meritorious SC students every year and provide them with admission to the best private residential schools in the country.

According to the press release, SHRESHTA scheme aims to create an environment that will help SC kids develop holistically and socioeconomically, giving them a better future. The primary goal of the programme is to encourage cooperation between residential high schools that provide high-quality education and grant-in-aid institutions run by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

There are two different ways that the scheme is implemented. The top CBSE/State Board affiliated private residential schools are the SHRESHTA institutions, which are the first category. The National Testing Agency (NTA) will administer the National Entrance Test for SHRESHTA (NETS), which will be used to pick a predetermined number of exceptional SC students each year from a number of States and Union Territories (UTs).

The students will subsequently be accepted to the top private residential schools connected to the CBSE/State Boards for their education from Class 9 to 12. A selection committee will choose these schools for the admission of chosen pupils based on their exceptional performance, with institutions over 75 per cent pass rate for classes 10 and 12 over the last three years will be selected.