As part of the civic initiative My Malleswaram, about 1,500 meritorious students from kindergarten to pre-university were given scholarships on Sunday.
Malleswaram MLA CN Ashwath Narayan handed over the scholarships, and mentioned that he would be handing out an additional 1,500 scholarships on June 30.
“I was not expecting such a crowd today when I was informed about the felicitation. It definitely feels great when you get up on the stage and there are so many people from the area who are applauding for you,” said Preethika P, who sored a whopping 590 out of 600 in her SSLC examination.
Preethika’s classmates who also got over 95% were at hand with their mark sheets and scholarship envelopes at the event. “For us it was just another Sunday and we thought there were going to be only students. We didn’t bring our parents along because we didn’t expect the event will be this big,” said another student Sahana H from Vidya Mandir in Malleswaram.
Over 17 students who got more than 96% in their SSLC examination were felicitated in addition to the 56 from SSLC. Apart from that, the constituency, with help from schools in the area, contacted toppers from all classes and recognised them as well.
According to Narayan, this was a way to help the needier section of the society in the area to learn about various government schemes they are eligible for. The day also featured an awareness counselling programmes for the parents of students hailing from such backgrounds. “We want to let people know about schemes they can avail of from the government and we want to create an educational support programme that will help them guide to plan the possible careers for their children,” Narayan said, adding that the student database from the programme will also be made public so that “philanthropists” could also pitch in.