Budget 2024 expectations: Education sector awaits focus amidst NEP 2020 vision and funding challenges
The budget outlay for Education increased from Rs 37,383 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 37,453 crore in 2023-24.
A large number of children from Government schools start transitioning from school to work as early as from the 8th Class.
By Ratna Viswanathan
Just like every other year, the buzz around the upcoming Budget is palpable and industry leaders are talking about what they expect from the Budget this year. As far as the Education Sector is concerned, a quick analysis over the last three years shows that the allocation for Education has been seeing a downward trend and the focus each year changes. At the backend, the World Bank/Government STARS programme is endeavouring to fortify crucial aspects and strengthen important areas such as Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, assessments, and learning outcomes. However, the landscape remains clouded with overlapping schemes and duplication of efforts adds to the complexity of the weft and warp.
The 6% of GDP aspiration for the Indian education sector has been in the works ever since the Kothari Committee came out with its report Education and Development in 1968 but has more or less remained at 2.8% to 2.9% of the GDP in the last decade despite higher outlays being made every year. The budget outlay for Education increased from Rs 37,383 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 37,453 crore in 2023-24. The New Education Policy of 2020 has set out some highly ambitious targets with tight deadlines. These include achieving universal education from pre-school to secondary level with a 100 % Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in school education by 2030 and 50% GER in higher education by 2035. It also aims to bring two crore out-of-school children into the educational mainstream and replace the existing 10+2 system by a new 5+3+3+4 curricular structure, with a special emphasis on three years of Anganwadi/ pre-schooling with a special focus on foundational literacy and numeracy.
With an eye on the visionary NEP 2020, there is a need for budgetary provisions for the creation of adequate infrastructure at the school level in terms of Anganwadis/co-location of Anganwadis, construction of an adequate number of classrooms and equipping classrooms with Teaching and Learning Material to ensure that children are able to achieve grade appropriate literacy and numeracy. An interesting fact thrown up by UDISE 2022 shows that there are 7,20,62,066 girls in Government schools as opposed to 7,11,78,414 number of boys. Drop out rates for girls start climbing once they reach puberty as the infrastructure to support their hygiene needs are inadequate. While enrolment is a priority, retention, especially of the girl child is even more critical. A push in the budget focused on creating this infrastructure would be of great value.
Another critical area is strengthening teacher training and teacher agency. With a shift in learning through the new 5+3+3+4 format, teachers have to be trained to roll this out effectively. Apart from pedagogy, socio-emotional support to young learners and handling of anxiety around examinations require specialised training. Adequate funds need to be set aside to set up virtual common rooms as safe spaces for teachers to share good practices, consult each other and also as a release for anxiety. The push towards a digital ecosystem has to include this. If teachers aren’t capable and supported, very little learning is likely to happen for children.
A large number of children from Government schools start transitioning from school to work as early as from the 8th Class. While vocational inputs are a part of the syllabus from the 6th Class onwards, active skilling with a focus on employability is critical as is backstopping this with financial literacy. With unemployment being high, there is a need to create entrepreneurs as opposed to job seekers. Also, skilling needs to be very specific and focused on the immediate geography and employment avenues available to children transitioning from school to work. Budgets need to be specifically purposed to ensure the design and roll out of this in a curated manner. The necessary infrastructure to roll out skilling at the State level needs a nudge from the central budget. A shift towards skill-based education, especially in underserved regions, is critical and leveraging technology to roll this out in a standardised and quality manner can be achieved by allocations for setting up supporting telecommunication infrastructure to ensure net access across states.
The education ecosystem needs to be flexible and have a multidisciplinary approach to equip children, particularly in low resource schools to be future ready. A push in the budget towards creating this will go a long way in actualising the vision of the NEP 2020.
The author is CEO of Reach to Teach. Views are personal.
The article was first published on – https://www.financialexpress.com/jobs-career/education-budget-2024-expectations-education-sector-awaits-focus-amidst-nep-2020-vision-and-funding-challenges-3379425/
February 1, 2024
