Focusing on Just 1% Schools, Union Budget ‘Completely Ignores’ School Education Sector
Mitra Ranjan | 27 July 2024 | Counterview
The Right to Education (RTE) Forum’s National Convenor Gautam Badyopadhyay has said that the Union budget ignores the school education sector. “Far from delivering 6% GDP for education that the government has repeatedly promised, this year’s budget brings neither significant focus nor new money for the education India’s 431 million citizens under 18”, he underlined.
This is the first budget after the recent LS elections and the newly formed Government. We do not see any change in the allocations made for school education in the Interim Budget tabled on 1st February, 2024. Meagre increase in the budget of the Department of School Education from Rs.68,804.85 crore in 2023-24(BE) to Rs. 73,008.10 crore in 2024-25(I)(BE) is inadequate, a 6.1% increase which is just ahead of inflation.
In absolute terms, this Rs. 4,203 crore increase is largely on account of allocation in the budget for Rs. 6,050 crore for PM SHRI (exemplar schools). In other words, these new funds are concentrated in less than 1% of India’s schools (14,500 schools out of India’s nearly 1.4 million schools) and will focus on creating pockets of excellence for local elites, not ensure equitable quality education for everyone.
Similarly, while the midday meal (MDM) budget has increased by Rs. 867 crore between 2023-24 (BE) and 2024-25(I)(BE), the actual spending in 2022-23 (Rs. 1,2681 crore) was higher than this year's budget estimate (Rs. 12,647 crore). The focus on ensuring the availability of workplace creches in the budget speech was, however, a positive development from the perspective of ensuring early childhood care and education, provided efforts are made that these adhere to quality and safety standards which would again need more budget….