New Delhi, 23 March 2022: Humanities courses have not been excluded from the subjects eligible for availing scholarships by aspiring students under the National Overseas Scholarship (NOS) Schemes for SC and ST students.

This department reviews the NOS scheme guidelines from time to time and makes changes for simplifying the procedures and to make the process more transparent. Since there is greater demand for study in science and technology fields, in order to better utilise the resources, scholarships can be prioritized for those subjects in greater demand. The fields of study where India has strength or where the field work is to be done in India can be left out of the list. Accordingly, topics/courses concerning Indian Culture, Heritage, History & Social studies on India will not be considered for award of scholarships from 2022-23 onwards, whereas other Humanities/Social Sciences which need international exposure such as Law, Economics, Psychology etc are still available for funding. This change has provided more opportunities for the poor SC students to study in global best universities.

In light of the above, there may not be a need for introducing an alternative scholarship scheme and the same scheme viz. the National Overseas Scholarship Scheme for SCs etc. will continue to be implemented by the Department with guidelines as revised recently.

This information was given by the Minister of State, Social Justice & Empowerment Shri A. Narayanaswamy in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.