Shikshaa is all set to nurture young talent

CHENNAI: Shikshaa Edutech has announced the launch of the ‘Young Wizard Contest’ and ‘Shikshaa Talent Reward Programme’ to recognize and reward meritorious students. Addressing a press conference, Ranjith Narasimhan, CEO of Shikshaa Edutech, said that the ‘Young Wizard Contest’ will identify hidden talent at school level and award the students.The contest will be conducted in two stages. In the first stage, students belonging to two groups — Junior comprising students from Class 8 to 10 and senior comprising Class 11 and 12 students — will write a written test featuring questions on mathematics, physics and chemistry. Two students from each school in each group, who excel in the written test, will be selected for the second stage: an ‘innovative’ science project.The science project can be on any innovative solution to a current issue including energy crisis, rapid urbanisation, environmental degradation and global warming.A panel of judges will select two best projects from each group level and award prizes to the talented youngsters.The competition does not have an entry fee and any student from Class 8 to 12 can participate.In addition, Shikshaa Edutech also launched its Talent Reward Programme to enable engineering aspirants to pursue their educational goals. The programme comprises two sets of scholarships.The first depends on the grades scored by the students in previous year.This category of scholarship will range from 10 per cent to 50 per cent depending on the academic performance of the student. The second category, the Walk-in and Walk-out scholarship, will be provided for national level toppers, state-level toppers and district level toppers as well as other students with proven exceptional capabilities.Further details can be accessed on their website, www.shikshaaedutech.com.The launch also saw a talk on ‘Evolving global trends in Education’ by N Jegadeesh, professor of Emory University, USA. He said that Shikshaa’s use of online mock tests and online bulletin boards supported with immediate feedback, facilities such as a national rank indicator on completion of the mock test, low studentteacher ratio and regular counselling will help students succeed in engineering entrance exams.