1500 J&K girl students to get 100% fee waiver for pursuing Data Science, AI

As any as 1500 girl students from degree colleges across Jammu and Kashmir will be awarded scholarships to help them undertake high-quality and tech-driven online skilling programmes in cutting edge technologies like Digital Marketing and Data Science with Artificial Intelligence.

A proposal to this effect was jointly agreed upon by the Higher Education Department J&K and the upGrad Foundation-the philanthropic and not-for-profit division of Higher Edtech company upGrad.

upGrad Foundation will be supporting this initiative through its 100 per cent fee waiver for tech-driven programmes to help deserving and shortlisted female learners through its social impact initiative – Vidya Shakti Scholarships.

However, the initiative will not be confined only to online courses and scholarships but will aim to deliver an all-encompassing education experience with added benefits like one-on-one mentoring and learning and guidance through webinars and talks. It will also offer strong placement support in the form of internships and job opportunities facilitated by the upGrad Foundation for enabling positive career outcomes for the learners.

The initiative will educate and empower female learners coming from underserved sections and marginalised backgrounds and connect them with role models to guide and inspire them to follow in their footsteps. It will also provide a 70 per cent scholarship for reputed PG courses in Management and Executive PG programme in Human Resource Management.

While access to Higher Education and focus on skills are among the major goals of the National Education Policy 2020, substantially increasing the number of youths with relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship will also significantly contribute towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2030.

As per a release issued by upGrad, with females being hit the hardest by the pandemic, the girl students especially in remote areas were facing challenges in terms of higher education and employment. The support of the upGrad Foundation in getting women learners to access the mainstream job market through digitization and upskilling will be a tremendous boost. The said initiative is initially being introduced in 16 colleges but can be expanded later on.

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