Empowering under-priviliged through quality education

VELLORE: Financial assistance of Rs 53 lakh was handed over to 971 students to help them pursue their college education at Vellore recently. The financial assistance was extended to them by Universal Higher Education Trust.

The Trust has been extending financial assistance since 2012 to help students who cannot afford college education due to poor economic background of their families. The selected students received financial assistance to complete their studies for the year 2018-2019.

The function, held at Vellore Institute of Technology, was graced by Founder and President of Universal Higher Education Trust and Founder and Chancellor of VIT, Dr G Viswanathan and S V Balasubramaniam, Chairman of Bannari Amman Group of Companies, Coimbatore.

In his presidential address at the function, Dr Viswanathan said that since its inception in 2012, the UHET has been helping thousands of poor students to help them pursue their college education. He further added that for a society to progress, education for its youth was most important. There were over 700 districts in India and 32 in Tamil Nadu. Dr Viswanathan said the Vellore District should be the model district in entire India especially in the field of education and towards this objective, the UHET has extended financial of Rs 5.5 crore to 5,075 young women and men students.

He said it was significant to note that two-thirds of the people who received this financial assistance were women and that it was everyone's responsibility to ensure that women complete their college education before their marriage. He also stated, everyone should ensure that all poor students are educated and every Indian should contribute to this endeavour.

Speaking further, Dr Viswanathan mentioned that through the Placement Cell of VIT, 108 people had got jobs at Bank of America. Even though Donald Trump was the President of the United States of America, the Bank of America was being run and led by former students of VIT.

Dr Viswanathan observed that at present, Tamil Nadu was witnessing a remarkable improvement in the school education sector and added that the efforts of School Education Minister K A Sengottaiyan had to be appreciated. He also said Central and State governments should take all possible steps to ensure that every single youth of the country receives quality higher education.

In his address, Balasubramaniam, who was the special guest on the occasion, said that in the developed countries, equal importance was given to technical education as much as basic education and India too should devote more attention to technical education.

Mayilambigai Kumaraguru, welcomed the gathering where as poet V Pathumanar, M Venkat Subbu, President of Darling group, K Zawarilal Jain, J Latchmaman, C Kaisar, Ahmad and K M Devaraj, offered their felicitations.

R Muthu Veeran, Project Director, delivered a vote of thanks towards the end.