Why in news:

• Recently, Mission Youth, Jammu and Kashmir, has launched a scheme to support the coaching of students for various competitive examinations including the Civil Services Examination.
•  The scheme will benefit 3000 meritorious and competitive students for coaching facilities, educational support and other requirements.
  
  
   

Key Points:

• The draft guidelines proposed by Mission Youth have been approved by the Finance department and the scheme is now being formally launched.
• This will cover various competitive examinations being conducted by the Union Public Service Commission, J&K Public Service Commission, Service Selection Board, Staff Selection Commission and various other recruitment authorities.
• Coaching institutes of national repute and outstanding local institutes having proven track record and required facilities as well as infrastructure will be empaneled for best coaching facilities to be offered to students.
•  The desirous students will have to register on the designated portal.
•  Thereafter, the selection will be made through an elaborate screening process or qualifying test based on the pattern of competitive examinations and prescribed syllabus.
• The selection will be done quarterly to ensure that all examinations are covered and students appearing for next year are provided the required support.
  
  
   

Eligibility:

•  First eligibility criteria for students would be that the candidates must be the domicile of Jammu and Kashmir.
• They must have family income not exceeding Rs 8.00 Lakh per annum
•  They need to have secured requisite percentage of marks in the qualifying examination prescribed for applying in a particular competitive examination or recruitment.
• To ensure gender balance and focus on girl child education as well as providing a platform to women students a total of 30% seats are reserved for girl students/ candidates.
• Besides, ten per cent additional weightage shall be given to the candidates who have already qualified the preliminary level of a particular examination.
   
• The students appearing for competitive examinations like Civil Services Examination including IAS, IPS, IFS, IRS, IFoS, IRS-Customs of UPSC and JKAS, JKPSC, Accounts services etc. conducted by J&K PSC, national-level examinations of Staff Selection Commission, UT level examinations of J&K Service Selection Board and other similar recruitment authorities/commissions at central level eligible for these examinations will have to register on the designated portal of Mission Youth providing specific details and uploading supporting documents.
• The students selected through the screening process shall be eligible to choose the institution of their choice from the list of empaneled coaching institutions of repute and the scheme will cover tuition expenses of coaching.
•  A comprehensive selection cum screening process has also been finalised for empanelment of coaching institutions in a transparent manner including periodic reviews and concurrent evaluation.
• Deputy Director Mission Youth has been designated as nodal officers for implementation of the scheme.
• An inter-departmental committee has also been constituted which will consist of representatives from departments of finance, school education and higher education as members apart from representatives of registered associations.
•  Currently, Mission Youth is also working with various stakeholder organisations and departments to initiate similar coaching for NEET students which is targeting to cover 5000 students every year.
• Residential coaching institutions at Srinagar and Jammu are also being planned for the establishment of state-of-the-art coaching facilities and residential accommodation.