Guwahati: Assam education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma here on Monday linked free admission of poor students in higher secondary and degree colleges to tree plantation while making it mandatory for every college to adopt at least one village.
Announcing to give free admission to all the poor students whose family income is below Rs 1 lakh, Mr Sarma told reporters, “The students looking for free admission under defined category will have to produce the photograph of them planting a tree each.
In order to continue this benefit to the next year of education, the student will have to produce another photograph of the same sapling showing a year’s growth, said the minister.
Informing that the college will have to produce these photographs to the education department to get disbursement against the fee waived to the poor students, Mr Sarma said that some of the grants to the colleges have also been linked to mandatory adoption of villages.
“We have prepared a scheme in which each college will have to adopt a village to get the government grants,” said Mr Sarma adding that college teachers will have to take some mandatory classes in nearby schools also.
“We will also grant some fund to the colleges to fulfill their social responsibility in the villages like providing blackboards, desks, benches and water filters to schools or motivating villagers towards cleanliness etc,” said the education minister who on Monday hosted a meeting with the principals and teachers of colleges to apprise them about the new scheme.
The education minister also appealed to the teachers who are said to have produced fake degrees to resign voluntarily in the larger interest of society and to avoid humiliation.
“Instead of facing action from the government and getting humiliated, teachers who got enrolled on the basis of fake degrees should quit,” said Mr Sarma while announcing that in December, they will review the progress of all these new schemes.
