The allocation made for education in the Union Budget 2023 reminds one of these lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “Work without Hope”: “Work without hope draws nectar in a colander, and hope without object does not live.” Can stay.” However, newspaper headlines told a different story: ‘Highest ever allocation for education’; ‘Huge 8% hike for education’; ‘First ever teacher and education-centric budget’, etc. But even if one does not read the budget and its provisions for education seriously, it is known that what is behind this mask.
The provision of ₹1,12,000 crore as compared to ₹1,04,000 crore takes the education sector no closer to the top 10 list of allocations as a percentage of GDP. Still, an increase of ₹8,000 crore can be termed as a huge increase.
The school sector has been allocated ₹68,804.85 crore compared to ₹63,449.37 crore last year, largely due to the new allocation of ₹4,000 crore to PM Schools for Rising India), or PM-SHRI alone.
This, combined with the newly announced Eklavya Model Residential Schools to be opened in every district of India, actually reduces the provisions for the already existing schools and their activities, making them unable to cope with the pressure of rising prices and increasing enrollment in government schools. It is difficult. , Government and government aided schools are still where the underprivileged and underprivileged go. Out of about 15 lakh schools, 10 lakh schools are owned and managed by the government, in which about 97 lakh teachers are employed and more than 26 crore students are fed.
no different in higher education
The story of higher education is no different. Allocation for higher education has also been increased from Rs 40,828 crore to Rs 44,094 crore in 2022-23, with allocations to autonomous bodies (such as University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education, Central Universities, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Indian Institute of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, School of Planning and Architecture) has shown an average increase of 13.60%. Of these, Central Universities are the biggest beneficiaries (22.39% increase).
The total budgetary support to the Indian Institutes of Management has come down from ₹653.92 crore in 2022-23 to ₹300 crore this year. A major chunk of the allocation is for repayment of Higher Education Funding/Funding Agency (HEFA) loan and interest thereon, leaving only ₹15.17 crore in 2023-24.
Such drastic cuts may have hurt but it seemed inevitable as these institutions have hiked their fees to justify public money. We do not know whether this has affected the equity in their campuses.
Many others may be really disappointed as well. No provision has been made for HEFA in this year’s budget, which could mean no fresh loans for infrastructure development in centrally funded institutions. The allocation for world-class universities has been reduced from ₹1,700 crore to ₹1,500 crore. The Prime Minister Girls Hostel allocation has also been reduced to half.
heavy cuts again
Interest subsidy and contribution to Guarantee Fund, Scholarship for College and University students and Special Scholarship for Jammu and Kashmir have now been merged into a new scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Uchchatar Shiksha Protsahan (PM-USP) scheme. Thus, the allocation for the three schemes has been reduced from ₹1,878 crore to ₹1,554 crore.
Budgetary allocations for research, innovation, incubation and startups have either been reduced or eliminated. The Startup India initiative in higher educational institutions has come down from Rs 60 crore to Rs 11.21 crore in 2022-23, while the provision for the National Initiative for Design Innovation has come down from Rs 17.80 crore to Rs 10 crore. Allocations for Impacting Research, Innovation and Technology (IMPRINT) and the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) have been drastically cut. There is no provision for Impactful Policy Research in Social Sciences (IMPRESS) in the budget.
All these three schemes were launched with much fanfare. While the provisions of the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) have been earmarked at ₹400 crore, for virtual classes and massive open online courses (MOOCs), e-ShodhSindhu, National Digital Library No funding has been provided. and National Academic Repository.
The budget had made a grand announcement to open ‘three’ Centers of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in top educational institutions. It also promised a policy on national data governance. It is expected that these will not affect the education sector.
The proposed National Research Foundation has been allocated Rs 2,000 crore through the Department of Science and Technology, but is awaiting approval from the Union Cabinet.
Thus, the overall increase in allocation for higher education is due to a shortfall in collections from ₹14,250 crore to ₹6,000 crore in 2022-23. In fact, the allocation for higher education has come down from Rs 55,078 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 50,094 crore in 2023-24.
According to the Economic Survey 2023, the combined expenditure on education (as a percentage of GDP) by the Center and States has remained stable at 2.9% during 2019-20 to 2022-23 (BE). As a percentage of total government expenditure, it declined from 10.7% in 2019-20 to 9.5% in 2022-23 (BE), while the share of education in social services fell from 42.5% to 35.5% during the same period.
In this era of Amrit Kaal, everyone is in the hope of getting some portion of Amrit. Penny-pinching can seriously hinder the revival and revival of education when it comes to education. Budget 2023 has not brought anything new. Hi there is nectar in the sieve.
Furqan Qamar is Professor of Management at Jamia Millia Islamia and former Adviser on Education in the Planning Commission. Navneet Sharma teaches at the Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala