Focusing on just 1% schools, Union budget ‘completely ignores’ school education sector

By Mitra Ranjan*
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.
“This year’s focus when it comes to education was on skilling. This is short-sighted, since it ignores the true reasons for the poor employability of India’s graduates- the poor quality of education they receive in school. The government should have instead focussed on building strong foundations by investing in quality, equitable and inclusive school education which would have enabled India’s youth to emerge from the education system capable of taking up good jobs and realising their full potential,” Bandyopadhyay said.
Expressing shear disappointment, he further said that it clearly shows that the government has no priority for education in Budget. Criticising the Union Budget, the Forum said that the budget should have given a roadmap to strengthen the public education system and ensure ground implementation of the right to free and compulsory education as well as its extension from pre-primary to higher secondary. (RTE compliance is still at 25.5% at national level as per data provided in the Parliament on 2nd August 2021 based on U Dise Data).
---
*National Secretariat, Right to Education Forum

Comments

Modi govt distancing from Adanis? MoEFCC 'defers' 1500 MW project in Western Ghats

By Rajiv Shah Is the Narendra Modi government, in its third but what would appear to be a weaker avatar, seeking to show that it would keep a distance, albeit temporarily, from its most favorite business house, the Adanis? It would seem so if the latest move of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) latest to "defer" the Adani Energy’s application for 1500 MW Warasgaon-Warangi Pump Storage Project is any indication.

India’s climate tech ecosystem in dire need of both early, growth-stage funding: Report

By Our Representative India’s climate tech ecosystem, which boasts over 800 startups, is in dire need of both early and growth-stage funding to leverage its full potential, according to a report by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (Ventures) and MUFG Bank , Japan. Despite a robust initial funding landscape, with approximately two-thirds of climate tech startups receiving seed capital, growth-stage investments remain critically lacking.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded reaction in the form of a link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Bayer's business model: 'Monopoly control over chemicals, seeds'

By Bharat Dogra* The Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has rendered a great public service by very recently publishing a report titled ‘Bayer’s Toxic Trails’ which reveals how the German agrochemical giant Bayer has been lobbying hard to promote glyphosate and GMOs, or trying to “capture public policy to pursue its private interests.” This report, written by Joao Camargo and Hans Van Scharen, follows Bayer’s toxic trail as “it maintains monopolistic control of the seed and pesticides markets, fights off regulatory challenges to its toxic products, tries to limit legal liability, and exercises political influence.”

105,000 sign protest petition, allege Nestlé’s 'double standard' over added sugar in baby food

By Kritischer Konsum* 105,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop adding sugar to its baby food products marketed in lower-income countries. It was handed over today at the multinational’s headquarters in Vevey, where the NGOs Public Eye, IBFAN and EKO dumped the symbolic equivalent of 10 million sugar cubes, representing the added sugar consumed each day by babies fed with Cerelac cereals. In Switzerland, such products are sold with no added sugar. The leading baby food corporation must put an end to this harmful double standard.

UNEP report on how climate crisis is impacting displacement, global conflicts, declining health

By Shankar Sharma* A recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), titled "A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing," warrants urgent attention from our country’s developmental perspective. The findings, detailed in the report, should be a source of significant concern not only globally but especially for our nation, which has a vast population and limited natural resources.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah* The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.

75 years of revolution: How China moved away from ideals of struggle for human liberation

By Harsh Thakor* On October 1st, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, a pivotal moment in the struggle for human liberation. From 1949 to 1976, China achieved remarkable social equality and revolutionary democracy, outpacing other developing nations in literacy, health care, agricultural output, and industrial production.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Search This Blog