The Pre Upper Primary (PUP) Scholarship and the Pre Secondary Scholarship exams (PSS) held on February 19, 2018 in Maharashtra witnessed a low turnout of students with the overall number of examinees dropping by nearly one lakh.

According to Maharashtra State Council of Examination (MSCE) chairman Dattatray Jagtap, the low scholarship amount — INR 100 per month — could be one of the reasons to turn aspirants away.

“Some students take the exam because it is a prestigious scholarship. But poor students need a meaningful sum to continue their studies. The scholarship amount must be increased as the current structure has been around for a long time. This can be why the total number of applicants has fallen by nearly 95,000 over the past year,” Jagtap said.

Apart from low scholarship amount, many other reasons are also there responsible for low turnout of students for scholarship examinations.

“There is no efficient way to make students aware of the scholarships on right time which results into lack of participation of students in scholarship examinations,” Ashutosh Kumar Burnwal, Co-Founder and Director of Buddy4Study said.

He said that students should be aware of scholarships beforehand so that they can prepare required documents accordingly.

“Students should be aware of the scholarships beforehand so that they can prepare their required documents accordingly,” he said, adding, “It takes nearly 15-30 days to prepare a family income certificate for some scholarships. In absence of this document, application is not submitted successfully.”

He further said that Internet and language are the other two reasons responsible for low turnout of students for scholarship examinations.

“Almost all scholarship information is available in English and application for the scholarship is submitted in online mode,” he said, adding, “Students coming from underprivileged sections of society are neither good in English nor have access to Internet which could be the reasons for low turnout for students for these scholarship examination.”