Allocation to education sector comes as a dampener

Also, the Government ought to have given a fillip to the edtech sector, which saw a spike during the pandemic. This could have wronged the critics in the industry and give a boost to the edtech industry to come up with more product offerings and thereby strengthen the resolve of the Government's Atmanirbhar programme

The Union Budget's 2021 estimates assume greater significance for the education sector, given the fact that the country is slowly recovering from the after effects of the Covid pandemic. The pandemic has caused a major disruption in the education sector, which has witnessed a massive paradigm shift in the mode of delivery from the traditional to the digital platform.

The Budget comes against the backdrop of the New Education Policy 2020, which needs a robust base. The Budget 2021-22 announcements for the education sector is Rs 93,224.31 crore, which is less than the funding in 2020 – Rs 99,311.52 crore. The Department of School Education and Literacy is allocated Rs 54,873.66 with no investments in capital, while the Department of Higher Education gets Rs 38,325.15 with a capital of Rs 25.50 and a total of Rs 38,350.65 crore. The expenditure on Education as per cent of GDP is 3.5 compared to 3.0 last year.

The allocation comes as a dampener as much was expected from the Centre, in the context of its ambition to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in education from 26 per cent upwards. Also, the Government ought to have given a fillip to the edtech sector, which saw a spike during the pandemic. This could have wronged the critics in the industry and give a boost to the edtech industry to come up with more product offerings and thereby strengthen the resolve of the Government's Atmanirbhar programme.

It is disquieting that there is no investment in capital in the Department of School Education and Literacy, especially when several newspaper reports have documented the plummeting number of school-going children, especially from the disadvantaged sections. As education has seen smoother transition assistance in funding laptops and other one-time expenses could have come as a boon to these sections and reduced the impending gaps in education. Further, investment in the school education could have focused on infra development in IT and in government-run educational institutions to instil confidence among parents. Upgrading of the teachers to work with new technologies could have ensured better learning outcomes. Subsidies to meet the high tuition costs and easy access to funds would have gone a long way.

Given the fact that the NEP has brought about marked changes in the structure and approaches with the perspective of making it more contemporary, innovative, interdisciplinary and flexible, and committed to attaining the goal of sustainable national development, a capital expenditure of Rs 25.50 crore augurs well. India has massive potential to enrich the knowledge ecosystem. However, the consensus is that the quality of research is far from reasonable. In order to develop a sound research ecosystem, the Budget could have been farsighted. The R&D National Research Foundation with an outlay of Rs 50,000 crore over five years, National Language Translation Mission to boost internet access Deep Ocean Mission for ocean exploration and biodiversity conservation are steps in the right direction.

(The author is Professor and Head, Department of Communication and Journalism, Osmania University)