Coimbatore :
A Rajagopalan, a supervisor with a private firm near Sundarapuram and his wife, Lathika, are overjoyed after speaking to their daughter ReejaKuruvakkat, now at Edge Hill University in the UK on Thursday evening. Though she sounded a bit apprehensive about the food, Reeja, a second year MA History student at Government Arts College here, was full of pride and excitement when she told her parents that she was waiting to get her identity card as international student processed at the university. “We never expected that our daughter would get an opportunity to study abroad,” says LathikaRajagopalan.
Four students from the Government Arts College here have been selected for the all-expenses-paid study abroad programme joinly conducted by Tamil Nadu government and the British Council. Two of them, Reeja and J Sharon Jemima, have already left for the UK while I Nivedhitha and K S Anbarasu are all set to fly out in September for their four-month long academic sessions.
For Rajagopalan, Reeja’s achievement was a welcome relief after a series of personal and professional misfortune. Rajagopalan and Lathika were running a fabrication and lathe workshop in Hosur supplying automobile components which had to be shut down due to the acute power shortage and labour issues coupled with some personal issues. They had to sell the unit and shift base to Coimbatore, where Rajagopalan now works as a manager cum supervisor at a private firm. “I was under severe stress and depression. I am so proud to have Reeja as my daughter,” says Rajagopalan.
The study abroad programme enlists meritorious students with a decent foothold in English language for a semester-long training at Edge Hill, Nottingham, Royal Holloway and Birmingham universities in the UK. Five students from Government Arts College were selected but one of them dropped out at the last moment due to personal reasons.
Anbarasu, a second year MSc Zoology student is the only boy in the 14-member group of students drawn from across the state. He is set to join the student community in Nottingham University. His father, S Sivaraj, is a conductor on a government bus that plies between Pollachi and Tirupur. He is, of course, thrilled that his son is going to study in England and got an opportunity to meet the chief minister when the group met in Chennai on Wednesday. “It is beyond our wildest imagination that such an opportunity would come for my son,” says Sivaraj. The family hails from Kallampatti, a village about 25 km off Pollachi.
For I Nivedhitha, a second year MSc Botany student from the college, applying for a passport and gearing up for the trip was the most strenuous part of the procedure. She plans to pursue a PhD in Molecular Biology. Her father, S Iranimose, works in a private firm near her residence in Udayampalayam in the city. Nivedhitha takes tuitions for school students at her rented residence along with her sister Priyanka, who is a second year student at Government Arts College. “The credits we score in the foreign university will be converted and added to our regular course credits after we return,” Nivedhitha told TOI.
J Sharon Jemima, a second year student of MSc Psychology, is already at Edge Hill University. Her father, S Julius, a mechanic residing in Anna Nagar on Sathy Road, told TOI that Sharon called him on Thursday and assured him of pursuing her academic stint abroad with full dedication.
“It is a matter of great achievement for our institution that four of the children selected for the programme are from our college. Our teachers and also a few of our retired professors pooled in money and handed over them for additional support during their stay there,” said V Jothimani, principal, Government Arts College, Coimbatore.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by Binoy Valsan, TNN / August 30th, 2013