THE WAY FORWARD

Updated on: Monday, February 15, 2010

BUDGET 2009
Rs 900 crore for ‘Mission in Education through ICT’ Rs 827 crore allocated for opening one Central University in each uncovered state Rs 2,113 crore allocated for IITs and NITs National Mission for Female Literacy launched A scheme introduced to provide full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium to cover loans taken from scheduled banks Allocations made for the new schemes of National Fellowship for Students from minority community and grants-in-aid to Central Wakf Council for computerisation of records of State Wakf Boards

BUDGET 2008
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan provided Rs 13,100 crore with the focus to shift from access and infrastructure at the primary level to enhancing retention and improving quality of learning. Mid-day Meal allocated Rs 8,000 crore; secondary education allocated Rs 4,554 crore Rs 130 crore provided to establish Navodaya Vidyalaya in 20 districts having large concentration of SC& ST Funds (as part of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) provided for additional 410 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas in educationally backward areas 16 Central Universities in each of the uncovered states

BUDGET 2007
Increase in allocation for school education by 35% from Rs 17,133 crore to Rs 23,142 crore Provision for strengthening of teachers training institutions increased from Rs 162 crore to Rs 450 crore Mid-day Meal Scheme provided Rs 7,324 crore Provision for secondary education doubled from Rs 1,837 crore to Rs 3,794 crore National Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme: selection through a national test from among students who have passed class VIII; each student awarded Rs 6,000 per-year A corpus fund of Rs 750 crore created and augmented by a like amount annually over the next three years

BUDGET 2006
The outlay increased from Rs 7,156 crore to Rs 10,041 crore in 2006-07 ; allocations for 5,00,000 additional class rooms and appointment of 150,000 more teachers 12 crore children covered under Mid-day Meal Scheme; allocation enhanced from Rs 3,010 crore to Rs 4,813 crore 1,000 residential schools for girls from SC, ST, OBC and minority communities under the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme; Rs 128 crore provided; an additional Rs 172 crore provided during the year A sum of Rs 3,000 deposited in the name of the girl child who passes the VIII Standard Examination and enrols in a secondary school

— Compiled by Tirna Ray and Surbhi Bhatia

LAVEESH BHANDARI Director, Indicus Analytics
The forthcoming budget is ‘likely to focus on vocational training. Considering the large number of unemployable youth that we are producing, we should focus on skilled manpower. It is a matter of grave concern that despite their school and college education, students are not equipped in terms of practical job skills. It is time we realise that they need to be industry-ready. Incompatibility between learning and application has already led to an unwarranted situation. In order to ensure a desired balance , the government should try and enable the entry of private sector and also look at quality issues, among others.

MADHAV CHAVAN Co-Founder , Trustee & Director-Programme , Pratham
With the 11Five-Year Plan already in place, ‘the government is not likely to go beyond the plan. However, I guess that secondary schooling will be one of the priorities of the forthcoming budget. With the government having planned to set up 6,000 model schools, there shouldn’t be any further delay in terms of its implementation. Hiring teachers, especially in rural, tribal and backward areas and creating mechanisms for training teachers should be one of the major concerns. Also, apart from allocating funds for new initiatives the focus should now be on ‘outcome’ oriented investments and ‘effective’ utilisation of funds. Or else, we are unlikely to achieve anything in the long run.

RIAD JOSEPH Associate Director, Ernst & Young
The finance minister in his budget speech last year ‘stated that one of the policy objectives of the new government is to create a competitive, progressive and well regulated education system of global standards. To fulfil this goal, the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has proposed several education reforms. For example, the National Commission for Higher Education and Research Bill, 2010, the National Authority for Regulation of Accreditation in Higher Educational Institutions Bill and the Prohibition of Unfair Practices in Technical Education Institutions, Medical Educational Institutions and Universities Bill, 2009, has been proposed . These bills once enacted will seek to avoid the multiple overlap of functions between regulatory agencies, create a super-regulator for higher education in India, improve the accreditation regime and will create a regulatory mechanism against erring institutes. A key expectation from the budget will be the announcement of time-lines to approve and enact the bills that have been proposed. The private sector is also hopeful that the budget will contain policy statements on models for publicprivate partnerships, new schemes for education loans to students and broad base financing options for private institutes (eg foreign loans).

REKHA SETHI Director-General , All India Management Association (AIMA)
AS far as the budget is concerned , allocations should be increased in the higher educa-‘tion sector as our economy is expected to grow at over 7.5%. We need highly skilled, technical and managerial expertise to sustain this in the long run. Investment in institutions of higher learning, both technical and managerial, which are technology driven in areas like telecom , health, agriculture (including pharmaceuticals and biotechnology) software product development, infrastructure and governance should be continued. The budget should also encourage research in new areas such as energy, infrastructure and technology innovation. Also, it is important to invest in faculty development . Rather than going in for large universities, the government should aim at investing in smaller institutions with focused learning. It should also focus on creating institutes to offer management programmes in emerging and rapidly growing sectors.

PRAVEEN JHA Associate Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU
MY prediction is that in the forthcoming ‘budget there will be some increase of fund allocation in the area of elementary education. This is because of the right to education (RTE-2009 ). My prediction is based on the fact that the current annual expenditure amounts to 1.39 lakh crores in elementary education. So even if you go by the CABE committee recommendations it has to be hiked by ‘at least’ Rs 75,000 crore. However, in terms of fund allocation, elementary education is likely to be followed by higher education. Personally, though, I feel that as far as education is concerned, there are gaps at almost every level — primary, elementary, secondary, tertiary. It is time we took an integrated view of things and did things not only in a coordinated manner but also raised resources substantially. Right now, we should ideally have a co-ordinated plan for the next five years.

Timesofindia

THE WAY FORWARD

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