Students of Classes X, XI & XII are eligible to apply across India.
New Delhi. Lore India Foundation Scholarship Trust has announced the launch of a scholarship programme that will identify, assess, reward and mentor the brightest young minds in India. The programme is open to school students from classes X, XI and XII from across India and is the nation’s largest scholarship programme 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.
LAT is devised to test a child’s aptitude or innate brain power as opposed to their academic learning. The National Scholarship Programme 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.
Administered in English and Hindi, the LAT will assess the candidate's aptitude and not the extent of knowledge in subjects. The emphasis will be on analytical and logical reasoning, reading comprehension and puzzles. LAT is designed to provide a level playing field for students to compete irrespective of their socio-economic status, geography or educational background.
In order to avail of this opportunity, students will have to apply online on http://lorefoundation.org. Registrations open on July 14, 2014. The registered students will then have to appear for LAT.
Explaining the need for the LAT and the scholarship program, Prof. Seyed E. Hasnain (Padma Shri), Professor, IIT-Delhi 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.”
This scholarship programme comes with another unique feature to help promote quality learning infrastructure at school levels. This includes a rewards and recognitions programme for schools to enable them to fund meritorious students from disadvantaged backgrounds, improve school infrastructure and acquire new technology and learning tools for a complete classroom experience. Schools shall be ranked based on the performance of their students in LAT. The top 3 schools in the country shall receive monetary awards of Rs. 2.5 million, Rs. 1.5 million and Rs. 1 million respectively.
