With a survey pointing out “strong indicators of privilege within the predominant student population at the leading national law schools,” the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore has now floated a scholarship policy for its students.
A major shift that the Committee on Scholarship Policy, constituted this April, has come up with is to make scholarships available to the students immediately after they are selected. The ‘merit-cum-means’ scholarship will be shifted to the third year for the LLB course, said S. Japhet, convener of the committee. The committee itself consists of representatives from the student community, alumni and undergraduate and postgraduate councils, among others. The Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access (IDIA) survey had said that extremely high fees charged by these institutions, lack of awareness about law as a career option among low-income groups and a rigorous entrance examination (the Common Law Admission Test) “for which expensive coaching has all but become a pre-requisite” were contributing factors to the lack of diversity.
“This is the first of its kind in the country. Varsities should have a scholarship policy. The mandate of a law school is to be inclusive. The committee will be administering all scholarships – external and those offered by the government. And it is not just the social factor that will be considered. Even those who cannot afford the mess fee, for example, will be covered,” Prof. Japhet said.
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The panel will review existing external scholarships too to see if the amount is sufficient. The idea is to avoid students knocking on the doors of banks, wherein loans are accompanied by high interest rates.
Scholarships to be given to students soon after their selection for admission