Lore India Foundation launches National Scholarship Program for school students

The program is open to school students from classes X, XI and XII from across India and is the nation’s largest scholarship program and national benchmarking initiative. 

 

"More than 100 of the most brilliant students will be identified through a scientifically evolved Learning Aptitude Test (LAT), designed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) with the help of acclaimed education scientists. Qualifying students will receive cash scholarships from a generous corpus of Rs. 55 million and also benefit from valuable mentoring and coaching provided by renowned academicians. Once selected, the Scholars will undergo a comprehensive interest schedule/psychometric analysis to gain insights that will allow experts to provide them effective guidance in their educational careers," read an official statement.

 

LAT is devised to test a child’s aptitude or innate brain power as opposed to their academic learning.

 

The National Scholarship Program is guided by TCS and a stellar body of academic stalwarts that constitute Lore India Foundation’s Governing Council, including both current and retired professors from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indian School of Business (ISB), Medical Council of India and University Grants Commission (UGC), among others.

 

Explaining the need for the LAT and the scholarship program, Prof. Seyed E. Hasnain, Professor, IIT-Delhi said, “In the context of the current education system, we believe that the scholarships will bring in immense parity amongst students from across different states and Boards. Currently, there is a very clear disconnect between the marks scored in the State Boards that account for 95 percent of students vs. the Central Boards that account for the balance 5 percent only.”

 

Hasnain said, “The State Boards are much more stringent about marking than the Central Boards, leading to a completely skewed evaluation system that, by no means, reflects the academic aptitude or merit of the child. This leaves a vast majority of the student population of our country relatively disadvantaged. LAT is a brave, new and different way of evaluating the academic competence of children today that will help circumvent this gap.”

 

Speaking about the philosophy behind the LAT system Mr. Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Director Tata Consultancy Services, Global Head TCS Ion said, “Our focus is to deliver an assessment that can give a level-playing field to all students irrespective of their social, economic backgrounds, gender, exposure to rural or urban schools and their current academic levels in subject domains. We use a powerful set of tools and technologies that ensures an accurate assessment of the students’ academic aptitude.”