Promise of a Televised Education Has India Gripped By Swot Idol Fever

Two thousand Indian schoolchildren began a televised battle last night to win five scholarships to English universities, in the first installment of a new prime-time show tipped to grip the nation this summer.

Scholar Hunt - Destination UK has none of the glamor of the other reality shows which have bewitched Indian viewers in recent months, but such is the value ascribed to education here that broadcasters expect this quiet program to attract large Saturday-night audiences. Over eight weeks the students will sit exams, undergo Mastermind-style general knowledge quizzes, IQ tests, and endure interviews with academics from Leeds, Warwick, Cardiff, Sheffield and Middlesex, the universities which have offered fully-funded places.

By September five winners will move to England for three years to study engineering, management, media, biomedicine and computing on £45,000 scholarships. Cameras will follow them for the duration of their degree as they experience culture shock and come to understand the delights of freshers' week and English food.

The first episode stars 400 shy aspirant students - none exuding on-screen charisma - following them to exam halls around the country. It is not ideal television material, but the directors have done their best; adolescents banging their heads on their desks in despair are interspersed with shots of the British campuses, bathed alluringly in sunshine, set to a pulse-racing soundtrack. What drama there is takes place among the waiting parents, many of whom have traveled hundreds of miles from India's rural heartland to give their children a chance to win a life-changing foreign education.

Although all candidates had to have access to the internet to apply, these are not India's most privileged. One candidate's father sells bangles for a living; another's drives a rickshaw. 'They want to improve their child's lot and they see education as the best way to do this,' presenter Arun Thapar said.

As one contestant, Neeraj Kumar, disappears to sit the test, his misty-eyed elderly father mutters: 'I have faith in god that he will win.' Another rages as his daughter is turned away for failing to bring her official school mark book.

This is more 'swot idol than pop idol. This is not a popularity contest or about attracting audience votes, it's about making sure the best students win,' Thapar explained. 'In reality TV terms, that may make it less gripping, but we think there will be a feelgood factor in watching students get what they deserve.'

Several British universities have set up recruitment offices in India recently, intensifying efforts to attract applicants. 'This will be a springboard to get Warwick publicized in India,' Bill Croft from the university's school of engineering said, explaining why Warwick was funding a scholarship. 'Academic standards of Indian school leavers in maths and science were very high,' he added.

· 'Scholar Hunt - Destination UK' is being broadcast in the UK on BSkyB