In a major initiative to promote education among girls, the government on Thursday decided that every single girl child would be eligible for free education from class VI to XII from the current financial year. It has been decided that all schools seeking affiliation to the Central Board of Secondary Education would have to give total fee waiver for every girl who is a single child of her parents. Similarly, if there were two girls in the family, both would be entitled to a concession in fees to the extent of 50%. Fees would include tuition fee and all other fees, by whatever name charged, but excluding money charged for transport and food. The UGC would also make a similar provision as a condition of affiliation/approval to all its programmes and courses. The government would initiate dialogue with other examination boards and affiliating institutions to come up with similar schemes for the single girl child, an HRD ministry release said. UGC would also launch graduate and post-graduate scholarship schemes for the single girl child. Any girl who is the only girl child of her parents would be eligible to receive a scholarship of Rs 500 per month for graduate studies (non-medical and non-engineering) and Rs 1,000 per month for medical and engineering graduate courses. Rs 2,000 per month would be given to pursue her post-graduate education in any recognized institution of higher learning in the country. The ministry said all these schemes and measures would be implemented out of the resources of the concerned institutions, adding that all beneficiaries would be transparently selected based on self-selection and that scholarship by CBSE and UGC would be without prejudice to any scholarship, which the student may receive from any other source. CBSE will offer 550 scholarships based on its class XII examinations, on merit basis at the rate of Rs 500 per month for pursuing under-graduate education.