As the presentation of the Union and state budgets draws near, many educational institutions and experts have held out hope that more focus will be given to education in the coming year, especially in improving infrastructure.
Development educationist Dr Niranjanaradhya VP told The New Indian Express that the Right to Education (RTE) and National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 cannot be properly implemented if at least five per cent of the Union budget is not allocated to education. “The state of government schools is pathetic in both the country and state. Currently, only 2.7 per cent of the state’s GDP and 0.47 per cent of the country’s GDP is being spent on education, as opposed to the RTE’s suggestion of 6 per cent. While this is difficult, at least five per cent of the Central budget should be allocated to education,” he said.
Distribution of budget
On the lack of funding in the state, he said the bulk of the budget is spent on faculty salaries. “The state is left with only around five to 10 per cent of the total funds allocated to education, to provide better facilities and teaching material for students. The state should provide for children with disabilities with specially trained teachers, hearing aids, textbooks and other necessities they may need, instead, they are only provided grants. There should be special allocation in the budget for quality education, to be spent on improving schools and providing better facilities for children,” he said.
Others believe the state should focus on digitisation to ensure that education is able to reach people even in the most rural areas. “While the NEP's primary goal is to ensure everyone has access to education, it suffers from a lack of infrastructure, especially digital, in rural and semi-urban areas. We believe there should be dedicated funds to assist educational institutions in building and scaling digital infrastructure to become hybrid learning centres,” said Ali Sait, CEO of Tech Avant-Garde.
Interestingly, with the pandemic bringing to light issues of how mental health is managed in the country, a few experts also believe that counselling in schools should be given more importance. “As a nation, now would be an ideal time to put mental health in the spotlight, this budget should allocate some amount to counselling school and college students. A mandatory and effective counselling programme should be drawn up to uplift children from all societies and backgrounds,” said Dr S Nagendra, Professor and Dean of the Department of Management Studies, Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology.
