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to continue underfunding education tion breeds more corruption.
in the Centre’s budgetary allocations. My request to the EW team is
The same mind-set applies to sops to conduct thorough background
for the private health sector, but that checks of all top-ranked schools from
is a story for another day. the national capital region before
Your ‘Resource mobilisation including them in your EW league
for Indian education’ table is an tables.
inventive and realistic calculus to Pronoy Kumar Ghose
canalise greater funding into human NEW DELHI
development in our cash-strapped
economy.
Glenn Christo Heartwarming initiative
SHILLONG YOUR INAUGURAL Education-
World India Budget Private School
(BPS) Rankings 2020 Awards report
Shocking profligacy (EW March) celebrating India’s most
MARCH 2020 CONGRATULATIONS TO Educa- admired BPS was heartwarming and
tionWorld for presenting a well- overdue.
researched analysis of the Union Kudos to EducationWorld for
budget, and especially for demon- conducting the first independent
Inventive calculus strating how to raise resources for survey to rank India’s Top 300 bud-
THE COVER STORY ‘Union Budget public education (EW March). The get private (i.e, affordable) schools
2020-21: Small change for human Union budget is a true reflection of in 143 cities and towns across the
capital development’ (EW March) the Central government’s spending country, and convening BPS leaders
highlights the step-motherly treat- priorities and unfortunately educa- on a common platform to deliberate
ment of Union finance minister Nir- tion — accorded highest priority by ways and means to make high-qual-
mala Sitharaman to education. While governments of developed countries ity affordable schooling a reality for
defence, corporate and middle-class — is at the bottom of the agenda for India’s educationally under-served
subsidies enjoy undeserved priority, the government of a nation hosting children.
human resource development is an the world’s largest child and youth Vrinda De
unwanted orphan. population. GURGAON
The Draft National Education Pol- Special thanks to you for exposing
icy (NEP) 2019 provides a visionary that establishment expenditure of
blueprint that sets out the template the government at a massive Rs.6.09 Vain hope
for liberal education and holistic lakh crore is almost 20 percent of THANK YOU FOR presenting a
development of youth with “21st the budgeted revenue of the Union comprehensive report of the Union
century skill-sets”. In all likelihood, government. Your exposé of this Budget 2020-21 and highlighting the
NEP will be implemented by private government profligacy is shocking continuous neglect of human capital
schools and universities, rather than and scandalous especially when com- development in India (EW March).
moribund and lackadaisical public pared with your revelation that the It exposes the short-sighted vision
education institutions. ratio of establishment expenditure to and consistent failure of successive
While we may praise the draft revenue of Reliance Industries Ltd is governments at the Centre to revive
National Education Policy of the a mere 1.82 percent. the country’s systemically flawed
Kasturirangan Committee, there Sameer Desai education ecosystem. With national
are government strategies hidden AHMEDABAD (Central plus state governments)
between the lines. The concessions spending on education hovering
given to private sector education, for around 3 percent of GDP, the least
example, degree-granting powers to Background checks please we can expect from the government
all colleges by 2030, and the promise Most schools in the national capital is to encourage private investment
of light statutory oversight, are — accorded top ranking in your K-12 in education. But judging by high-
calculated to attract greater private education rankings surveys — de- handed government regulation of
investment into education. This skew mand donations from parents at the private schools and colleges across
towards the private sector brings time of admission. Collecting dona- the country, this is a vain hope.
imbalance with the public sector, tions from parents is nothing but Sanjay Hegde
and betrays the surreptitious policy corruption. In my opinion, corrup- UDUPI

10 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2020