Mother Teresa Scholarship

What is the Mother Teresa Scholarship?

Mother Teresa Scholarship is a state scholarship run by the Directorate of Minority Welfare, Government of Kerala, for students from notified minority communities who are studying nursing diploma or paramedical diploma courses in Kerala. The scheme is often searched for by its Malayalam transliteration, Mother Theresa Scholarship, and the official guideline document for 2025-26 is titled "Guidelines For Mother Theresa Scholarship 2025-2026".

According to the guidelines signed by the Director of Minority Welfare on 17 December 2025, the scholarship amount is Rs 15,000 per student for the academic year. The money is paid once during the course period, so it is a one-time grant rather than a renewable annual scholarship.

The Directorate of Minority Welfare was formed under the General Administration Department in 2008 and is the nodal agency in Kerala for both central and state schemes meant for the six notified minority communities: Muslims, Christians of all sects, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis. Mother Teresa Scholarship sits alongside the department's other awards: C H Muhammed Koya Scholarship, APJ Abdul Kalam Scholarship, Prof. Joseph Mundassery Scholarship Award, CA/ICWA (CMA)/CS Scholarship, ITC/ITI Fee Reimbursement and Civil Service Fee Reimbursement, all of which are applied for on the same portal.

Why the scheme exists. Nursing and paramedical diplomas are among the most common routes into employment for first-generation students in Kerala, but the fees, hostel costs, uniforms and clinical placement expenses fall in the first year, long before any earnings begin. Mother Teresa Scholarship targets exactly that gap with a single lump sum.

Who is eligible for the Mother Teresa Scholarship?

You are eligible if all of the following are true:

• You belong to one of the six notified minority communities; Muslim, Christian (all sects), Sikh, Buddhist, Jain or Parsi.
• You are a permanent resident of Kerala and hold a nativity certificate.
• You are enrolled in a Government nursing school for a diploma in nursing (General Nursing), or in a Government, Government-aided or self-financing institution for a paramedical diploma course.
• You secured admission through a merit seat.
• You scored not less than 45 percent marks in the qualifying examination.
• You hold a bank account in your own name in a scheduled commercial bank.

Priority and reservation. Preference is given to students in the BPL category. Only in the absence of enough BPL applicants are APL students with an annual family income up to Rs 8,00,000 considered. Separately, 50 percent of the scholarships are reserved for female students; if female applications fall short, male students are considered for the balance.

You cannot apply if:

• You do not belong to a notified minority community, or cannot produce a community or minority certificate from the Village Officer.
• You are not a permanent resident of Kerala.
• You took admission through a management or NRI seat rather than a merit seat.
• You scored below 45 percent in the qualifying examination.
• You are pursuing a degree course such as B.Sc Nursing rather than a diploma: degree students are covered by other Minority Welfare Department scholarships, not this one.
• You have already received the Mother Teresa Scholarship once during the same course. The guidelines state the scholarship is granted only once during the course period, so a second-year claim on the same diploma is not eligible.
• You do not hold a bank account in your own name. A joint account or a parent's account is not accepted for this scholarship.

What documents are needed for the Mother Teresa Scholarship?

The guidelines make one warning explicit: all bank details, account number, IFSC code, bank name and branch; must be checked and confirmed correct, because the department will not be responsible for rejection caused by incorrect bank details.

How to apply for the Mother Teresa Scholarship online

1. Open the official portal at mwdscholarship.kerala.gov.in.
2. Click "One-time registration" and create your student account.
3. Log in using the username and password you set.
4. Complete your profile with personal, address, community and bank details.
5. Add your qualification details, including the marks of the qualifying examination and the diploma course you are enrolled in.
6. Click Apply for scholarship and choose Mother Teresa Scholarship from the list of open schemes.
7. Click Final submit and download the printout of the registration form.
8. Submit the printout together with all the supporting documents listed above to the head of your institution before the institution deadline.

How the institution verifies and approves your application

Mother Teresa Scholarship is not decided by the student alone. After you submit, the head of the institution or an authorised officer verifies the documents you handed over and then approves the application online in the system. The guidelines place the responsibility for completing verification and approval inside the deadline squarely on the head of the institution.

Government institutions may verify and approve online and keep the physical documents in the institution itself. Self-financing institutions must forward the applications or their data to the Directorate of Minority Welfare, 4th Floor, Vikas Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram 695033.

This is why a technically perfect application can still fail: if the college never approves it online, it does not reach the Directorate. Students should confirm with the college office that approval has been recorded, rather than assume submission is the end of the process.

What are the key dates for the Mother Teresa Scholarship?

For the 2025-26 cycle the guidelines list four separate deadlines:

1. 9 January 2026 — deadline for filling applications online.
2. 12 January 2026, deadline for submitting the application printout and required documents to the head of institution.
3. 14 January 2026, deadline for institutions to verify applications online after scrutiny and give approval online.
4. 17 January 2026: deadline for self-financing institutions to submit applications in person or by post to the Directorate of Minority Welfare.

The portal's own guideline listing showed the Mother Teresa Scholarship window opening on 20 December 2025 at 10:00 and closing on 20 January 2026 at 23:59 after an extension. The Directorate's website separately announced that "the last date for applying to various scholarships has been extended up to 20-01-2026". Dates change every year, so the notification and guideline PDF on the portal are the only reliable source for the current cycle.

How to check your Mother Teresa Scholarship application status

1. Go to mwdscholarship.kerala.gov.in and open the application status link, or log in to your student account.
2. Check whether the status shows submitted, verified by institution, approved by institution, or forwarded to the Directorate.
3. If the status is stuck at "submitted" close to the deadline, contact your college office, the pending step is the institution's online approval, not anything you can fix yourself.

Payment is made by Direct Benefit Transfer into the bank account you registered, so the last stage to watch is the credit in the passbook.

Common reasons Mother Teresa Scholarship applications fail

• Incorrect bank details. The single failure the guidelines call out by name. A wrong IFSC or an account not in the applicant's own name stops the DBT.
• Management or NRI seat admission instead of a merit seat.
• Marks below 45 percent in the qualifying examination.
• Missing community or nativity certificate, or a certificate issued by someone other than the Village Officer.
• Income above Rs 8,00,000 where the applicant is in the APL category.
• Institution approval not completed before the deadline.
• Repeat claim by a student who already received the scholarship earlier in the same course.

Where to get help with the Mother Teresa Scholarship

• Scholarship helpline: 0471-2300524, 0471-2300523, 0471-2302090
• Email: scholarship.mwd@gmail.com
• Office: Directorate of Minority Welfare, 4th Floor, Vikas Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram 695033

Applying for the Mother Teresa Scholarship is free. No agent can charge a fee for "getting your name added" to the list, and the entire application is made on the government portal by the student.