This document contains (1) selection criteria and guidelines and (2) selection procedure to be used for selecting a child for scholarship.

1. Selection criteria and guidelines

The corporation shall identify Nepalese children, here defined as those children, born or residing in Nepal, who are unable to attend school due to insufficient financial resources. Family is defined as the child, siblings, and those designated as guardians for the child. The selection committee, appointed by the board, reserves the right to make a final decision on whether or not a child satisfies the selection criteria. Those children meeting selection criteria, as determined by the board, shall be called eligible. The eligibility criteria are:

• In rural areas, family income must be less than or equal to NRs. 3000, 3200, 3400 and 3600 per month for a family with 1, 2, 3, and more than 3 children, respectively. In urban areas, family income must be less than or equal to NRs. 4000, 4300, 4600 and 4900 per month for a family with 1, 2, 3 and more than 3 children, respectively.
• Parents must be willing and available to meet with our social workers at least once a month.
• Academic costs for the sponsored child should be no more than US $100. Academic costs are: admission fee, monthly tuition, exam fee, books, and supplies.
• The child is not a relative of any NCEF/CE members or persons in the selection committee.

If there are more new eligible students than there are new sponsorships available for a given year, the selection committee shall use the following list of preferences to award scholarships to the neediest children.

• Applicant has never attended a school in the past
• Applicant is a girl
• Applicant is from a marginalized group ( so-called untouchable/dalit, indigenous caste or otherwise; not in the social mainstream)
• Applicant's family has a single parent
• Applicant's father's highest level of education
• Applicant's mother's highest level of education

Each member of the selection committee will provide a statement that explains how the applications were evaluated. The statement can be a list of points for each priority criteria or a few sentences if points were not used.

The selection committee may use any social worker comments presented in the application form to decide between applications that meet all other requirements.

Once a student is selected for sponsorship, the corporation will try its best to provide financial and other resources every year so the student can continue going to school until the child completes high school education (10+2 or Intermediate level).

The sponsored student and their family are required to fill out the scholarship application form every year. Renewal decisions are made by a majority vote in the selection committee. Any member can ask that 2/3 votes be used to approve a renewal application. The selection committee will renew the scholarship if it decides that the student and the family continue to satisfy the eligibility criteria in addition to the following renewal criteria.

• At least 75% attendance in the previous academic year
• At least overall passing grade so the child is able to get a promotion to the next grade in the upcoming academic year

If these conditions are not met, cases will be evaluated on an individual basis to determine what is best for the student in question and the organization. If the area co-ordinator thinks the student’s financial support should be renewed, the student will need to provide a detailed plan regarding how the conditions will be met in future years. Based on the recommendation by the selection committee, one-year grace period could be provided by the executive committee. Please note that this clause is not applicable if the student had already exercised this clause before. 

A child who went to school in the previous year needs to satisfy the renewal criteria regardless of whether or not they were sponsored by NCEF. A child does not need to satisfy the renewal criteria if they have been out of school for one or more academic year(s).

2. Selection procedure

The board studies the financial outlook of the corporation (including its commitment to provide continuous support to applications who were selected from the previous years), the strength of the area operation from the previous years, and the potential for each area meeting NCEF reporting requirements and determines the number of available scholarships in each area by a simple majority vote.

The Board appoints the selection committee. The selection committee is responsible for making arrangements to receive applications, archive/store applications, organize selection meetings, make selection decisions, and disseminate selection decisions to all the areas.

Applications for new scholarships are accepted throughout the year. The selection committee may start making decisions on applications once all the applications for a given area are complete.

Application for scholarship renewal is complete once grades from the previous academic year become available. A child who attended a school in the previous academic year and is a new applicant for the NCEF scholarship also needs to provide grades and attendance record from the previous academic year to complete the application.

The selection committee will not process applications that are incomplete.
If the number of applicants is more than the number of available scholarships, the selection committee uses the following procedure to award scholarship:

• Each member of the selection committee will rank students from each district.
• Applications receiving the best rankings are selected. If two candidates get the same ranking, then members will discuss the applications and vote on all the applications. This process is repeated until there is only one application receiving the best ranking.

NCEF is a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization.
US Taxpayer ID: 51-0424140
© Copyright Nepalese Children's Education Fund 2004.