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Items of Interest |
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Beyond classroom curriculums
CALIFORNIA DIARY | Shalini Kathuria Narang The regional competitions in spelling, vocabulary, essay writing, math, geography and elocution organized by the North -South Foundation (NSF) to promote educational excellence amongst the children of Indian origin commenced on April 2 at about 25 metropolitan venues in the United States. The Bay Area Chapters of the foundation held the contests at the India Community Center and on Sunday, April 3 at the Stanford campus. Sixty children in the age group of 6-15 participated in the varied contests of spelling supremacy, writing expertise and vocabulary valor at the Stanford University. The preliminaries for math magic and geography greatness are scheduled for April 17. "Over the next five weeks, around 700 children will contest the preliminaries. The 13th NSF National Finals are scheduled for August 6 and 7 at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois," says Raghvendra Patturi, the Director of the organisation. The national winners in the senior and junior categories of the myriad streams will qualify for scholarship grants of $1,000, $500, and $250. The grants are redeemable by the students on college entrance. The North South Foundation, started in 1989, also provides scholarships to meritorious and necessitous students in Bangalore, Bhavnagar, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Pune for pursuing college. To date, the organisation has awarded 2,000 grants that have been funded via individual and corporate donations, educational contests and walkathons. About seven years back, the foundation also started a mentoring programme for the scholarship winners to pursue higher education in foreign universities. "Our plan is to award 225 scholarships this year. Scholarship of $200 per student is for a year and covers the entire tuition fees in Indian institutions for bachelor programmes. Awards are granted after a stringent selection, based on merit and need," says Patturi. Sivananda Pareddy, a volunteer and donor with the Palo Alto chapter and a software engineer at Actuate was once a beneficiary of the NSF scholarship programme. Hailing from a farming family in the Telangana district in Andhra Pradesh, Sivananda applied for the NSF scholarship via a media advertisement. "Me and my father were interviewed by the Hyderabad chapter members to understand my case merit and after two months, I was informed that I had qualified for financial aid to pursue computer engineering from Osmania University," he said. To qualify, the applicants have to be in the top 500 of state entrance exams in the stream of their academic perusal. Sivananda is helping a student at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technology Institute in Hyderabad. "I communicate with the student that I have sponsored via emails to keep track of his academic progress. A few years back, I used to communicate with my beneficiary via snail mail," he added. Life truly comes full round. Mahindra Akkina, the National Technical Coordinator of the contest, says, "We are piloting geography and essay contests in Palo Alto and some other select chapters this year to gauge the interest and participation enthusiasm." Twenty children took part in the essay contest at the Palo Alto Chapter. The volunteers and organisers were cagey to reveal details on test topics to maintain the sacrosancy of the upcoming contests. While most of the young children only participated in spelling or vocabulary tests, the older children could be seen running from room to room to compete in all the categories. Ten-year-old Janak Jobanputra, said, "I could easily say the words, but the spelling test was tough." Sure boy, speaking comes before writing. All in all, a good exposure in an informal milieu, for children beyond school sanctuaries and classroom curriculums. |
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