‘A Disaster for the Basic Sciences’: KVPY Fellows React to the Scheme’s End

‘A Disaster for the Basic Sciences’: KVPY Fellows React to the Scheme’s End

Subject :Government Schemes

Section :Science and Technology

Context: On July 19, the Department of Science and Technology announced that it would subsume the Kishor VaigyanikProtsahan Yojana’ (KVPY) scheme under its INSPIRE fellowship

What is Kishor VaigyanikProtsahan Yojana’ (KVPY)?

• It was started in 1999 by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to encourage students who are studying Basic Sciences to take up research career in Science.
• The aim of the program is to identify and encourage talented and motivated students to pursue career in research
• It aims to assist the students to realize their potential and to ensure that the best scientific talent is groomed for research and development in the country
• Generous fellowship and contingency grant are provided to the selected KVPY Fellows up to the pre Ph.D. level or 5 years whichever is earlier.
• In addition, summer camps for the KVPY Fellows are organized in prestigious research and educational institutions in the country.
• The Department of Science and Technology, the nodal agency of the Government has entrusted the overall responsibility for organizing and running the KVPY Program to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and set up a Management Committee and a National Advisory Committee (NAC) for overseeing its implementation

Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) Scheme:

• To attract talent to the excitement and study of science at an early age
• To help the country build the required critical resource pool for strengthening and expanding the S&T system and R&D base with a long term foresight
• It was launched on 13th December 2008

INSPIRE has three components:

• Scheme for Early Attraction of Talent (SEATS):
• It aims to attract talented youth to study science by providing INSPIRE Awardof Rs 5000 to one million young learners of the age group 10-15 years, ranging from Class VI to Class X standards
• It arranging summer camps for about 50,000 science students of Class XI with global leaders in science to experience the joy of innovations on an annual basis through INSPIRE Internship
• Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE):
• It aims to enhance rates of attachment of talented youth to undertake higher education in science intensive programmes, by providing scholarships and mentorship.
• The scheme offers 10,000 Scholarship every year at Rs 0.80 lakh per year for the talented youth in the age group 17-22 years, for undertaking Bachelor and Masters level education in natural sciences.
• The main feature of the scheme is the mentorship support provided to every scholar.
• Assured Opportunity for Research Careers (AORC)
• It aims to attract, attach, retain and nourish talented young scientific Human Resource for strengthening the R&D foundation and base. It has two sub-components.
• In the first component i.e. INSPIRE Fellowship(age group of 22-27 years), it offers 1000 fellowships every year, for carrying out doctoral degree in both basic and applied sciences including engineering and medicine
• In the second component i.e. INSPIRE Faculty Scheme, it offers assured opportunity every year for 1000 post- doctoral researchers in the age group of 27-32 years, through contractual and tenure track positions for 5 years in both basic and applied sciences area.

Issue with the INSPIRE Scheme:

• INSPIRE, the programme the DST has subsumed KVPY under, arranges camps every year for high-school students and provides scholarships to those who pursue higher-studies in pure sciences after high school.
• It doesn’t have any provisions for students in classes XI and XII as of now.
• The programme also doesn’t conduct any tests of its own and uses pre-existing evaluation mechanisms – board examinations, JEE, NEET — to select INSPIRE scholars
• Its mandate also does not include a summer project like KVPY did.