14-year-old boy gets admission to MCA

14-year-old boy gets admission to MCA
(PTI) 1 October 2007

NEW DELHI — In perhaps a first of its kind achievement, a 14-year-old boy, the son of a labourer, has secured admission to the Master’s in Computer Application course.

Despite living in abject poverty, Shailendra Kumar Verma, whose parents are illiterate, has proved to be a genius, completing his Bachelor in Computer Application this year from Lucknow University with 66 per cent marks.

The child prodigy is now pursuing MCA at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The varsity has exempted the entire course fee for the boy, IGNOU’s Registrar (SRE) Srikant Mohapatra told PTI. “He is now the youngest student in IGNOU. The academic council of the university has taken his case as a special one and allowed waiver of fee during the three-year programme amounting to over Rs40,000,” Mohapatra said. Shailendra had passed Class XII examination from National Open School at the age of 11. Astonishingly, prior to that, he had never entered any formal education system. He has also cleared the Scholarship Aptitude Test (SAT). Shailendra later took admission in the Bachelor of Computer Science course in an American university, but could not pursue it due to financial constraints.

He has taken admission into the MCA programme at the Lucknow centre of IGNOU. In view of his poor financial condition, the regional head of the centre had sought waiver of fee for the student. "Whatever support the university can provide will be given to the student. We wish him all the best for the future," Mohapatra said.