The most significant development in the education sector in the past year was the announcement of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which has the potential to transform the education system in the country. However, experts said it lacked focus on tax relief and digital infrastructure leaving many of them disappointed. Will government increase the allocation for education sector in the upcoming Budget 2022?
We have to wait till February 1 for the answers when finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman present her fourth Union Budget. Meanwhile, we spoke to couple of experts and here are the some of the measures they expect from Union Budget this year
Covid-19 has certainly highlighted the gaps in education infrastructure that need to be filled. Students from underprivileged families have been impacted by several education institutes closing down. The government must plan a way forward to bring these impacted kids back into the education system, said Rumki Mazumdar, economist, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP.
The National Education Policy (NEP), which was announced last year, was given added impetus in the Budget with over 15,000 schools being qualitatively strengthened under the National Education Policy to become exemplar schools, which can then mentor other schools. This move has the potential to set the foundation for the new-age education system of the 21st century by institutionalizing e-learning and blended learning in these schools through a partnership with EdTech, which will further enable widespread digitization of the education sector.
Some of the stakeholders want the Centre to increase the allocation granted to the education sector. Kamlesh Vyas, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP, said that government needs to fund both in terms of capex and opex, especially in technology upgradation, research facilities, physical infrastructure, and asset maintenance
National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP) demonstrated commitment to the educational reforms and reaffirmed the recommendation of increasing public investment on education to 6 per cent of GDP as recommended earlier in NEP in 1968. Experts say that Centre needs to double down the education budget to increase the public investment from 3 to 6 per cent of GDP at the earliest.
Speaking about the National Education Policy 2020, RCM Reddy, managing director & chief executive officer, Schoolnet India Ltd., said, “We hope that the central government announces measures to strengthen the digital capability of each school, owing to the great digital divide that still exists, on a mission mode. Such a digital initiative should be holistic including access to the internet, affordable and appropriate devices, projectors, teacher training in digital pedagogy, curriculum centric multimedia content, adaptive assessments, and analytics to track progress.”
“Given the considerable expertise of private sector in Edutech, PPP models could be explored to execute such a mission. This will set the foundation on which the effectiveness of teaching and learning will improve and pave the path to democratise access to education,” Reddy added.
An increase in budget allocation, measures to reduce the digital divide, check the menace of school dropouts, faster implementation of the National Education Policy are some of the areas that finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman must look into in her Union Budget 2022 speech, education experts have opined.
“Ed-Tech startups and E-learning platforms and startups should be incentivized for a longer period to boost the creation of an ecosystem that would allow companies to reach out to wider sections of society and develop larger skills dissemination capabilities,” Jatin Arora, partner, Phoenix Legal.
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