Unable to spend, Kerala allocates less for education in Budget 2019

Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac presented the state Budget 2019-20 in the Assembly last month and revealed a new trend – that even a progressive state like Kerala in terms of education expenditure was looking to spend less.

The government earmarked 15 per cent of the Budget for education in 2019-20; it allocated 17.5 per cent for this purpose in 2017-18.

This could be because the state allocated more (16.3 per cent) than it could spend (16.1 per cent) in 2018-19. But why is the state government allotting money but not succeeding in spending it? But Kerala is still better placed than a lot of other states.

The Economic Survey 2017-18 referred to this trend. It showed that the states and the Union government together have been investing less than 3 per cent of the country’s GDP in education or, in the survey’s definition, in education, sports, arts and culture.

Six years ago, in 2012-13, education expenditure was 3.1 per cent of GDP. It fell in 2014-15 to 2.8 per cent and registered a further drop to 2.4 per cent in 2015-16. Although there have been some signs of recovery since 2016-17 

(2.6 per cent), expenditure on education is yet to be restored to the 2012-13 level, let alone be anywhere close to the government aim of touching 6 per cent of GDP. The Economic Survey carried a tacit acknowledgment of the unimpressive investment in social infrastructure. “Being a developing economy, there is not enough fiscal space to increase the expenditure on critical social infrastructure like education and health in India. However, given the limited resources, the government has consistently prioritised strengthening the educational and health profile of the population,” it said.

But here, Kerala, which is known for investment in education, is cutting outlays on education.