Page 47 - EW March 2021

Union Budget 2021-22: Major education allocations
Department of Higher Education

2021-22 2020-21
(Rs. crore) (Rs. crore)
Total allocation 38,350 39,467 (BE) 32,900 (RE)
Establishment expenditure 247 258 (BE) 243 (RE)
Promoting multi-disciplinary
research universities 0.10 0.10

Higher Education Funding
Agency (HEFA) 1.00 2,200 (BE)
World class institutions 1,710 500 (BE) 1,101 (RE)

Student financial aid 2,842 2,316 (BE) 1,208 (RE)
Digital India e-learning 645 444 (BE) 305 (RE)
Research & innovation 237 307 (BE) Kingdon: missed opportunity
Technical Education quality 20 650 (BE)
improvement programme inflow of private investment into the
beleaguered education sector.
Programme for Apprenticeship training 500 175 (BE) According to P ro f . G e e t a Ki n g -
University Grants Commission 4,693 4,693 d o n , chair of education development
economics at University College, Lon-
All India Council for Technical Education 416 416 don and president of City Montessori
Grants to Central universities 7,643 8,634 (RE) 7,643 (BE) School, Lucknow, ranked the #1 co-ed
day school in Uttar Pradesh (pop.215
Indian Institutes of Technology 7,686 7,332 (BE) 6,840 (RE) million) in the EducationWorld India
Indian Institutes of Management 476 476 School Rankings 2020-21, the public
K-12 education sector suffers several
National Institutes of Technology & structural deficiencies that are sti-
IIEST 3,935 3,885 (BE) 3,265 (RE) fling all learning improvement initia-

Indian Institutes of Science Education & tives of the Central and state govern-
Research 946 896 (BE) 993 (RE) ments. Among them, the main one is
government’s inability to “balance the
Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru 621.65 592 (BE) 605 (RE) teacher-pupil ratio in public schools”.
Indian Institutes of Information Due to continuous flight of children
Technology (4) 393.35 339 (RE) from government to affordable bud-
get private schools, in some govern-
Schools of Planning & Architecture 175.00 99 (RE) ment schools against the 1:30 ratio
Indira Gandhi National Open University 103.00 140 (BE) 111 (RE) prescribed by the Right of Children to
offered the finance minister a good Free & Compulsory Education (RTE)
National Institutes of Technical opportunity to confer MSME (micro, Act, 2009, the ratio is 1:10. On the oth-
Teachers Training & Research 173.00 155 (BE) 168 (RE)
small and medium enterprises) status er hand, especially better performing
NB: RE=revised estimate; BE=budget expenditure urban government schools, it is 1:60.
Source: indiabudget.gov.in “If the Central and state gov-
ernments simply transferred sur-
take up the slack. Surely the govern- tion of poorest households that cannot plus teachers to their under-served
ment is aware that as testified by the afford even the rock-bottom tuition schools, the current budgetary alloca-
path-breaking tate of S ector Private fees of the country’s unique 400,000 tion would go a much longer way and
S
S chools in I ndia R ep ort, 2 0 2 0 of the budget private schools which are edu- improve the poor learning outcomes
Central Square Foundation, 47.5 per- cating 60 million children. Given the of the country’s 1.20 million govern-
cent of all school-going children are financial strait-jacket of Covid-19, the ment schools. Moreover, the unprec-
already in private schools, and gov- finance minister could have at the very edented contraction of government
ernment schools are the default op- least, smoothed the way for greater revenue in the current pandemic year

MARCH 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 47