The Delhi government has set aside a total of Rs 16,396 crore for the sector in its budget for the year 2024-25. This is 21.57 per cent of the total budget expenditure, stated a report in The New Indian Express.
During the budget presentation, Finance Minister Atishi said, "Education has always been our government's top priority. That's why, upon coming to power in 2015, we doubled the budget for education and consistently allocated almost one-fourth of the total budget to education for the past ten years. In the budget of 2014-15, the expenditure on education was only Rs. 6,554 crores, and today, in the 2024-25 budget, we are proposing an allocation of Rs. 16,396 crores for education."
Under the budget, Rs 100 crore has been allocated to the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) for teacher training while Rs 150 crore has been proposed for the construction of new schools and classrooms.
The finance minister has also allocated Rs. 45 crore for the maintenance of existing classrooms and Rs. 42 crore for Schools of Specialised Excellence.
Highlighting her government's efforts in overhauling Delhi's education system, Atishi said that 22,711 new classrooms have been added in the last nine years. The minister also said that over 20,000 new seats have been added in state-run universities, taking the total enrollment to 93,880 students.
Additionally, the number of seats in technical education has gone up from 12,204 in 2014-15 to 62,000 in 2023-24. With regard to the recruitment of teachers, Atishi said that there are 47,914 regular teachers in Delhi's government schools, up from 34,182 in 2015. In addition, the recruitment process for 7,000 more teachers is currently underway.
