North South Foundation

Encouraging Excellence in Education

NSF Newsletter

Volume 6, Issue 1, January/February 2008

Namaste and Happy New Year!
Bee 2008 is now open. You must have received an email invite by now with detailed instructions on how to register.

Another exciting year of workshops, contests and fundraisers has begun. Would you like to help us plan and/or organize a contest or workshop? Start a new NSF chapter in your town? Conduct fundraising campaigns for NSF? Administer the scholarship program in India? Whatever your interest, we want to hear from you so together we can help bright but needy children in India fulfill their dreams of a good education.

In This Issue...

• NSF News
• NSF-India News
• Contest Feedback
• Articles
• Faces in Places

NSF NEWS

Here's a glimpse of NSF happenings.

Bee 2008

Online registration for the various NSF contests is open, with the registration count at 1300+. Please register your child so that you can download the practice words for Spelling and Vocabulary contests. This contest season, NSF is offering the following grade-based categories:

• Spelling - Junior (grades 1-3); Senior (grades 4-8)
• Vocabulary - Junior (grades 1-3); Intermediate (grades 4-8); Senior (grades 9-12)
• Math - Level 1 (grades 1-2); Level 2 (grades 3-5); Level 3 (grades 6-8)
• Geography - Junior (grades 1-3); Senior (grades 4-8)
• Essay Writing - Level 1 (grades 3-5); Level 2 (grades 6-8); Level 3 (grades 9-12)
• Public Speaking - Junior (grades 6-8); Senior (grades 9-12)

Note:Children in grades below 1 can also participate in the lowest grade groups (grades 1-2 or 1-3).

The regional bees will be held during March-April. NSF will publish finalists' names by the end of May to enable parents to begin planning for their participation in the 2008 National Finals. Please visit the NSF Website to read eligibility/enrollment requirements and become familiar with contest rules. For Math Levels 1 and 2, NSF follows Singapore Math syllabus, and for Math Level 3, MATHCOUNTS syllabus. Math Level 4 was eliminated this year due to poor participation in 2007.

Preparation

From Rules to preparation to Sample Words/Problems to FAQs, all your needs are listed on the NSF website. For spelling/vocabulary, if you have already registered and would like to download practice words, simply log in at the online registration site and click the link to download words.

Calendar of Events

NSF centers conduct contest workshops that will help your children prepare for the upcoming bees. Here's how your child could benefit by attending a workshop:Excellent workshop material complete with rules, mock bees and tips for improving performance in a contest; an opportunity to interact with and learn from other like-minded kids; a deeper understanding of NSF's India scholarship program; easy registration and nominal fees. Please visit the NSF website to register for a workshop near you. If you can’t find a workshop in your area or would like to help conduct a workshop, contact your chapter coordinator for further information.

The National Finals

The 2008 National Finals will be held at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology in Boston during Labor weekend. Look for more information in an upcoming newsletter.

NSF-India NEWS

NSF-India's main office is based in Hyderabad and accessible by email. NSF-India has 17 chapters throughout the far reaches of India: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhavnagar, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Katihar, Kochi, Kolkata, Madurai, Mau, Pune, Sibsagar, and Trivandrum. Please contact India Coordinators or US liaisons on the NSF website as we are looking for volunteers to administer the scholarship program in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jharkhand, Chattisghar, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh, and the North Eastern states.

• Jodhpur Chapter received 30 scholarship applications, of which 27 were shortlisted for interviewing, following which 20 candidates were awarded scholarships.
• Bhubaneswar Chapter sanctioned 37 new scholarships and 8 renewals. Three Engineering students and 34 Diploma students make up the new scholarships. Fourteen of the diploma students are from the Bhubanananda Orissa School of Engineering (BOSE) in Cuttack. Nearly a century old and situated on the picturesque banks of the Mahanadi, BOSE is the oldest and most reputable Engineering school in Orissa. A simple ceremony was arranged by BOSE Principal A.K. Sahoo to distribute the demand drafts (DDs). Sri S.C.Choudhury, IRS, Co-ordinator of Bhubaneswar Chapter was invited to attend the ceremony and distribute the DDs. Other facilitators, such as Sri Ishwar Ch. Rout, Chief Engineer (Retd.), Sri Dinabandhu Nanda, Supdt. Engineer (Retd.), Sri Ganeswar Parida, Asst. Engineer (Retd.), Sri L.N. Das, Program Manager, VECT and around 10 lecturers and staff of the college also attended the scholarship function. Following the welcome speech by Principal Sahoo, Sri S.C.Choudhury explained the background of NSF, its mission and present activities, and appealed all to extend their helping hand to make the mission a success. Other lecturers spoke of the good work being done by NRIs and NSF and Vikash. Some students also spoke expressing their gratitude and commitment to be a part of the process when they become earning members of the society. Students also took an oath that they would help other poor and meritorious students upon graduation. View some pictures from the function.
• Kolkata Chapter distributed 25 scholarships. Read Samit Bhattacharya's detailed account of the function.

P.S. If you or your friends/family know of economically disadvantaged but academically aspiring students in India, please direct them to contact NSF India regional chapters. NSF-India chapters generally solicit applications for scholarships following the publication of 12th grade/Intermediate results.

CONTEST FEEDBACK

If you have suggestions/comments about NSF contests, feel free to share them with us at any time.

Here's what a parent had to say about the 2007 Regional Bees:

(I) Just wanted to let you know that you all have done a wonderful job organizing the competitions this last weekend in Cleveland. It was all very professionally done - every aspect of it!! Registration, all the instructions you printed out and posted all over the venue, pronouncers, judges, the whole ambience, strict adherence to the rules schedules... Everything was so smooth, it was a very enjoyable experience for me as a parent and was very stressfree for all the children. It was very obvious that several hundreds and thousands of volunteer hours have gone into pulling together this event.
All the children and the parents deserve credit for preparing hard leading into this competition. But NSF deserves major kudos for providing a platform for our children to prepare towards a goal and excel, and for parents to meet with several like-minded parents to build some very good relations and friendships in the community. You all are playing a big role in our children's present future!!

ARTICLES

Games Indians Play:Why We Are the Way We Are?

Author V. Raghunathan discusses his theories on Indianess in this book.

Japanese Envy India's Schools?

This New York Times article examines the growing popularity of Indian education overseas.

FACES IN PLACES

Junior Nobel Prize Finalists

Eight Indian-American high school students, five of them girls, have been named among 40 finalists for the Intel Science Talent Search 2008 contest.

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