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Eighty-one new students have been selected for support by NCEF; this month, the NCEF Student Selection Board will give a report and we will give an update on our upcoming fundraising event.
Mehga, Rabin, Rabina, and Samjhana are just four of the 81 students receiving an NCEF scholarship in 2013.
NCEF provides financial assistance that enables many poor Nepalese children to attend school. Many children in Nepal—especially those in rural areas—need financial assistance to continue their education. Due to limited resources, NCEF cannot support all the students that apply for financial assistance through our area coordinators. Every year, the task of the selection committee is to identify the neediest students for NCEF to support.
The Team:
The student selection committee for the 2013-2014 year consisted of Abhishek Sharma (Chair), Bhusan Neupane, Maheshwor Kafle, Rabin Aryal, and Suman Thapamagar. After chairing the student selection committee for five years, Abhishek Sharma taken the role of treasurer. Rabin Aryal will chair the Selection Committee for 2014-2015.
Procedure:
NCEF currently operates in ten areas in Nepal: Chitwan, Dolakha, Kathmandu, Kavre, Lamatar, Nepalgunj, Patan, Sindhupalchowk, Sunsari, and Urlabari. Sindhupalchowk is a newly added area for NCEF. We collected applications for renewal of financial assistance from students in these areas. In addition, this year, NCEF decided to expand its support by taking on additional six students in Sunsari.
The two main procedural components to the student selection process are the selection criteria and the application forms. This year, we did not make any significant changes to either, and used the same criteria and forms as the past two years after using them with great success and ease. Details about the student selection criteria and applications forms are available on NCEF’s website at:
In 2010, we had added several questions in the new student application form, designed to assess the material wealth in a household (e.g., mobile phones, TV, radio, etc.) as well as the livestock owned by a family. This provided us with a better picture of the resources available to an applicant’s family. We continued to collect such information to assess new applicants this year as well.
We e-mailed the application forms to our field volunteers in Nepal, who then distributed the new applications to schools as well as to parents. They also distributed the renewal applications to all students that received financial assistance during the previous year.
Field volunteers collected the applications and academic reports from schools. They scanned all these documents and emailed them to the NCEF selection committee. For each renewal applicant, they also provided us with their recommendation on whether or not NCEF should continue funding the student. After receiving all the applications from an area, they were distributed to all selection committee members.
The Selection Process:
Renewal students: When deciding whether or not to renew a student’s funding, our goal was to verify three things: (1) has the student been promoted to the next class? (2) has the student’s financial condition improved to the point where they do not need NCEF support? (This happens on rare occasions), and (3) is the environment in a student’s home and his/her health good enough to allow the student to focus on his/her education? If certain renewal applications require special consideration, we interact with the field volunteers for additional information and document any requirements that are waived.
New students: For each area, all committee members rank each applicant based on their application and the recommendations from field volunteers. The rankings from all selection committee members are averaged out to create a final ranking for that area. Top candidates from this list are selected for financial assistance. Ties were resolved through discussion and voting amongst the selection committee members. All the selections should satisfy the NCEF criteria.
Results:
We selected 81 students in total. Some of the renewal applications were for students who had passed the SLC examination. These decisions could not be made until after the SLC examination results were declared, and hence, were made separately from the rest of the students. The following table shows the distribution of students across the various areas.
Distribution of students by gender:
Highlights:
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A majority of the NCEF students supported during the 2012-2013 school year did well academically, and their funding has been renewed for another year. In particular, Mimisa Sunsar of Lamatar has completed the grade 12 exam and is waiting for a result.
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To overcome the delay in making renewal decisions, often due to late arrival of mark sheets, this year we made provisional decisions that were later confirmed after mark sheets were received. This was done based on a recommendation by last year’s committee. We are happy to report that this experiment worked well—we received mark sheets in all cases, albeit after a waiting period of two to four weeks—and our provisional approvals ensured that students received the funds in a timely manner.
Challenges:
Government and local authority organizations desire to determine the selection criteria is still a main challenge faced by NCEF selection committee and area coordinators.
Acknowledgments:
The selection committee would like to thank all the NCEF volunteers for collecting and sending student applications.
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Since it’s beginning in Boston two years ago, the “Walk for Nepal” event has hosted NCEF across the country including Washington DC, New York City, Dallas, and Boston. This year, NCEF member Inku Subedi will be walking on behalf of our organization. For more information, see below:
Date: September 22, 2013 (Sunday)
Time: 8 AM to 3 PM
Location: Revere Beach, MA (MBTA Blue Line Revere Beach Station)
http://walkfornepal.org/
We encourage our friends and well-wishers in the Boston area to sign up to walk at the event by clicking on this link http://walkfornepal.org/wfn-2013/boston/register/
Please scroll down to the partner organization and choose "Nepalese Children's Education Fund" when you register.
If you are unable to participate at the event but would still like the support NCEF, you can sponsor Inku Subedi at http://walkfornepal.org/wfn-2013/boston/sponsor/
Please scroll down to choose Inku Subedi as the walker.
In Next Month’s Newsletter October’s newsletter will profile another member and continue to update our friends and donors on the progress being made by our students and our organization.
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