AICTE doubles engineering scholarships for women

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is set to offer 10,000 engineering scholarships for women attending technical institutions at the undergraduate level. The number of scholarships is more than double the amount of what was offered to women students until last year. 

The council, that acts as a technical education regulator of the country, offers an engineering scholarship for women named Pragati. It caters to women students from economically weaker sections of the society who wish to pursue polytechnic, engineering, pharmacy and architecture courses in institutions approved by the council. As a part of the scholarship, a woman student receives Rs 50,000 per annum, which is to cover tuition fee and other expenses. 

In addition to these scholarships, AICTE has also decided to grant funds from its own corpus, in order to provide monetary aid to poor women students coming from Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast region. 

Encouraging women participation

Doubling the number of engineering scholarships for women is an effective way to assure increased participation of women students in technical education. AICTE Chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe says, “In recent years, we have received good response for our Pragati scholarship scheme and hence we decided to expand the number to 10,000 this year. We want more and more girl students to take advantage of the scholarship scheme.”

Increasing the number of engineering scholarships for women is crucial, especially since the latest All India Survey on Higher Education pointed out that in 2018-19, only 28 per cent of those enrolled in the Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) course were women. A similar ratio is evident in the Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) course which had 28.86 per cent female students.

It is crucial to encourage women students to take advantage of such scholarships. These opportunities help uplift women from economically weaker sections of the society who are not able to financially support their dreams of pursuing technical education. 

Increase in PMSSS applications

Apart from providing such engineering scholarships for women, AICTE also offers scholarships for differently-abled students, masters students and researchers. One of their prominent scholarships, the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS), emphasises on integrating students from Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. 

The scholarship is restricted to students only from this region. It focuses on providing the students of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh with better educational opportunities, which they otherwise might not get in their home state.

The PMSSS has witnessed a big spike in the number of applications in recent years, according to AICTE officials. Their official data states that 18,852 students registered for the scholarship in 2020-21, 14,417 in the year 2019-20 and 14,403 students in the year 2018-19.

Engineering scholarships for women from economically weaker backgrounds, and for students from underdeveloped states is an amazing initiative from AICTE. It encourages students to pursue their dreams in technical education despite financial hurdles.

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