Union Budget 2022 gives fillip to Covid-hit education sector - Hindustan Times
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Union Budget 2022 gives fillip to Covid-hit education sector

By, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
Feb 02, 2022 01:48 AM IST

The Union Budget set aside ₹1.04 lakh crore for education, an increase of around ₹11,000 crore, or 11.86%, from what was pegged in 2021-22.

Taking note of the serious disruption in eduction due to the coronavirus pandemic, the government will expand the One Class One TV Channel initiative under the PM e-Vidya scheme to 200 channels from the existing 20, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech in Parliament on Tuesday.

Students follow Covid-19 protocols while attending a class at Government High school, at Musheerabad, in Hyderabad on Tuesday. (ANI)
Students follow Covid-19 protocols while attending a class at Government High school, at Musheerabad, in Hyderabad on Tuesday. (ANI)

“Due to the pandemic-induced closure of schools, our children, particularly in the rural areas, and those from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and other weaker sections, have lost almost two years of formal education,” Sitharaman said. “We recognise the need to impart supplementary teaching and to build a resilient mechanism for education delivery.”

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The expanded One Class One TV Channel initiative “will enable all states to provide supplementary education in regional languages for classes 1-12,” she said.

The government will also establish a digital university “to provide access to students across the country to world-class quality universal education, with personalised learning experience,” the finance minister said.

Despite the push in digital education, allocation under the digital India e-learning programme, which includes the PM e-Vidya scheme, was lowered to 421.01 crore for 2022-23 from 645.61 crore in the last financial year . The revised estimate of the programme in 2021-22 was pegged at 367.51 crore, lower that initially allocated.

The Budget set aside 1.04 lakh crore for education, an increase of around 11,000 crore, or 11.86%, from what was pegged in 2021-22. While the 2021-22 budget estimate allocated 93,224.31 crore for the sector, the revised estimates curtailed it to 88,00.52 crore.

Of the total outlay, 63,449.37 crore has been allocated for schools, and 40,828.35 crore for higher education. Last year, the financial allocation for the school and higher education departments was kept at 54,873.66 crore and 38,350.65 crore, respectively.

A bulk of the outlay for schools ( 37,383.36) will be spent on the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the central government’s flagship programme for universal education. Last year, 31,050.16 crore was allocated for the scheme.

The midday meal scheme, renamed as PM Poshan last year, saw a drop in allocation, to 10,233.75 crore in 2022-23 from 11,500 crore last year. The revised allocation for 2021-22 was 10,233 crore, the budget document showed.

Allocation for central schools such as Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas increased by 850 crore and 315 crore, respectively. The budget allocation for the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) was increased by 10 crore from last year.

Budgetary allocation for teacher training and adult education was drastically reduced from 250 crore in 2021-22 to 127 crore in 2022-23. The revised allocation for 2021-22 teacher training and adult education dropped to 2.75 crore, indicating that the funds earmarked for the scheme could not be spent.

In higher education, the allocation of grants to central universities has risen to 9,420.00 crore from 7,643.26 crore last year. Monetary support to the Indian Institutes of Technology has increased by 658.9 crore and to Indian Institutes of Managements by 177.9 crore in 2022-23, in comparison to last year.

The outlay for research and innovation has been pegged at 218.66 crore in 2022-23 in comparison to 237.40 crore last year. The revised allocation decreased to 144.41 crore in 2021-22.

The allocation for Higher Education Funding Agency has been drastically trimmed to 1 lakh from 1 crore in 2021-22. The revised allocation for 2021-22 was also 1 lakh. HEFA offers 10-year loans to higher education institutions for infrastructure development.

Besides these, the government has allotted 1,800 crore for the exemplar scheme, which aims to prepare more than 15,000 schools of excellence to help showcase the implementation of the National Education Policy 2020.

An industry stakeholder welcomed the push for digital learning.

“The expansion of the PM e-vidya scheme will help bridge the existing education divide in Tier 2 and 3 cities,” said Vivek Sunder, chief executive of e-learning portal Cuemath. “The Budget rightly focuses on content in regional languages, which will help students in rural and semi-urban areas associate better with what they are being taught.”

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Fareeha Iftikhar is a Special Correspondent with the national political bureau of the Hindustan Times. She tracks the education ministry, and covers the beat at the national level for the newspaper. She also writes on issues related to gender, human rights and different policy matters.

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