Budget 2024: Allocation On Education Still Below 3% Of GDP; Government Emphasises School Education

On July 11, a video of hundreds of job aspirants jostling in the lobby of a hotel at Bharuch in Gujarat leading to the fall of a few as the steel railing was unable to bear the pressure went viral on social media. Though there was no casualty as such, the opposition parties made it a point to show the condition of unemployment in India. There were only 40 vacancies for which more than 800 people gathered to try their luck. The country is currently reeling under 9.2% unemployment rate according to the data of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.

So, when the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the budget for 2024-25 FY, one of the major focuses was expectedly on upgradation of skills, education and job creation. But was she able to address the concerns of both the education and unemployment?

According to the economic survey, the allocation for the education was 2.7% of the GDP in 2023-24. The allocation remains almost same this time as well. In 2014, BJP in its manifesto declared that they would take the budget of education to 6% of the GDP as “investment in education yields the best dividend”. But even after 10 years, it remains a faraway feat to achieve. This year, the government has provided Rs. 1 lakh 48 thousand crores for the education, employment and skill development.

Education budget can be divided in two parts- school education and the higher education. While the higher education has witnessed formidable fund cut as the government has reduced the funding of the UGC around 60.99% bringing it down from 6,409 crores to 2,500 crores, the emphasis on school education has been prioritised. The major target of the government is to develop 14,500 model schools across the country under their flagship programme PM School for Rising India (PM SHRI). Though recently states like West Bengal, Delhi and Punjab opposed branding their schools under the central government scheme, the emphasis on this programme has not shifted its goal. The three states have categorically said that they don’t want to brand their schools under this scheme.

According to the programme, the central government will bear 60% of the cost for remodelling the identified schools and the state will bear the rest. As these three states have not agreed to sign the MoU under this scheme, the central government has reportedly stopped their funds under Samagra Siksha Abhiyan. As per the reports, Delhi is waiting for Rs. 330 crores whereas Punjab and West Bengal are waiting for funds amounting to Rs. 515 crores and Rs. 1000 crores respectively. Notably, Delhi government has been unable to disburse the salary of its teachers of the municipality schools.

However, Akshal Agarwal, Co-founder of NatureNurture, a renowned curriculum design organisation, thinks, “To implement National Education Policy (NEP), the central government has to create its own infrastructure in the schools. I don’t find any problem in their urge to tag them as PM SHRI.” The economic survey mentions that the three phases of school selections have been completed and they have selected 10,858 schools across 32 States and UTs. The budget has also approved Rs. 5942.21 crores for 10,080 PM SHRI schools.

The infrastructural development in the schools nonetheless were visible in the economic survey. The number of girls’ toilets in the school whereas has jumped from 88.1% in 2012-13 to 97% in 2022-23, the internet coverage has soared from merely 6.2% to 49.7% in ten years. However, the single-teacher schools across the country have stopped operating due to lower enrolment. Not only that, the National Achievement Survey 2021 shows there is a formidable decline in the students’ achievement. As per the economic survey, “Class 10 scores decreased by 13.4 percent in Mathematics, 18.6 per cent in science, and 9.1 per cent in Social Science, while Class 3scores decreased by 3.9 per cent in Language, 4.7 per cent in Mathematics, and 4. 4 per cent in Environmental Studies.”

On the other hand, data from National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy shows that only one-fourth of the students in class 3 were in their expected level in mathematics and only 20% in terms of reading. The reports of Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) also shows that the students of class 5 who can read the text of grade 2 fell from around 50% to 42% in between 2018 to 2022.

Against this backdrop, talking about the prioritisation of the school education Agarwal says, “It is very important that the school education is emphasised. Whenever I read the NEP, I learn a new thing and to implement that at the school level, the government needed focused allocation. In the higher education, private partnership is there.”

However, in the case of higher education, Sitharaman has declared that the government will give education loan to the students up to Rs. 10 lakhs for studying in domestic institutions. There will also be skill development programmes in collaboration with state that is about to help around 20 lakh youths.

The FM also announced that the government will provide internships to one crore youths who would also get Rs. 5,000 per month stipend along with a one-time allowance of Rs 6,000. The top 500 companies are about to spend the money for internship from their CSR fund. Interestingly, when the Congress in its electoral manifesto declared that they would provide Rs. 8,000 per month along with internship to one crore students, the BJP termed it a hoax.

One of the most important parts of the budget, educationists think, lies in the abolition of angel tax that was imposed on the start-ups that borrowed money from the angel investors. Anil Nagar, the founder and CEO of Adda247, a popular educational enterprise, says, “The abolition of angel tax will boost the economy as there will be more start-up initiatives.”

However, the budget didn’t address the structural reformation of examination system that many thought is needed in the backdrop of latest controversy over NEET and NET. “The issue of exam needs to be addressed. Though I didn’t expect the budget to address it, there could have been some possibilities,” says Nagar.

The opposition parties have been trying to corner the government over the NEET controversy since it broke out. Addressing the house on the first day of budget session, leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi said that the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan is holding everyone responsible for the NEET fiasco except himself. The budget nonetheless skipped any reference to it.

The budget also skips addressing the concerns of school drop outs. As per the reports from 2023 the drop-out rate in class 10 stands at 20.6%. The government though is doling out PM Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme (a mid-day meal initiative) that benefits 11.63 crores children from class I-VIII in 10.67 lakhs schools across India, there is not much effort to address the issues at secondary level. Overall, will this budget with less than 3% allocation of GDP on education be sufficient to address the concerns? Only the time will tell its potential to address educational concerns of India.