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More scholarships for Samurdhi families' students

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

The "Nena Nuwana" scholarship scheme implemented by the Samurdhi Ministry to assist students of Samurdhi beneficiary families has granted 8293 scholarships worth over Rs. 28.5 million up to the end of last year.

On a concept of Agriculture, Livestock and Samurdhi Minister S.B.Dissanayake, the Samurdhi Social Security Fund has implemented this scholarship scheme to assist students of Samurdhi recipient families, a Samurdhi Ministry spokesman told the Daily News.

He said the scholarship scheme which commenced in 1998 with only 235 scholarships has now been able to grant 8293 scholarships to the students of low income families by the end of 2002 due to the tremendous success achieved by the scheme for the past few years.

Meanwhile, the Ministry has planned to grant another 3000 scholarships to students of Samurdhi beneficiary families this year. "This will help the Ministry to successfully increase the number of scholarships up to over 1.1 million by the end of this year," he said.

Under this scheme, 10 scholarships are provided to the students selected from each Divisional Secretariat division. Over Rs. one million is spent by the Ministry monthly for these scholarships. The scholarships have been granted to the students of Samurdhi beneficiary families who have obtained excellent results at the G.C.E. O/L Examination.

In addition, Pirivena scholarships are provided to the pupil monks based on their results of the "Pracheena Praramba Examination".

The Ministry has granted 235 scholarships in 1998. This number was increased to 702 in 1999. However, as a result of the success achieved by this programme, the Ministry had been able to offer 1405 scholarships in 2000 and 2931 scholarships in 2001. Under this scholarship scheme, Rs. 350 is paid to each student selected for this scheme, he said.

The granting of Nena Nuwana scholarships to students for 2003 was commenced by Minister Dissanayake from the Central Province at a ceremony held at the Nuwara Eliya Town Hall on August 4. At this ceremony, 357 scholarships were granted to the students in three districts including Matale (110), Nuwara Eliya (47) and Kandy (200).

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