Gets priority in allocation, especially schooling and skilling
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee referred to the ‘demographic dividend’ of a young population, while raising allocation for the education sector by 24 per cent from the previous year, from Rs 31,036 crore to Rs 52,057 crore. In the 2010-11 Budget, the outlay had been raised 15 per cent, from Rs 26,800 crore in 2009-10.
“Over 70 per cent of Indians will be of working age in 2025. Universalising access to secondary education, increasing the percentage s in higher education and providing skill training is necessary,” the Budget speech said. The Economic Survey had said of a population of 1.1 billion, there were 662 million in the 15-59 years, working-age population. And, that the demographic dividend was a plus only with skill enhancement of the young.
The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a scheme to get children into school, gets 40 per cent more, to Rs 21,000 crore from Rs 15,000 crore in the current year. There’s a new scheme for vocationalising secondary education and a scholarship one for scheduled caste/tribe students in classes IX and X.
The National Knowledge Network, approved last year, is to connect 1,500 educational and research institutes with an optical fibre system by March 2012.
Special grants totalling Rs 700 crore were announced to chosen academic institutions. Among these are new centres of Aligarh Muslim University at Murshidabad in West Bengal and Malappuram in Kerala; Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University; IIT, Kharagpur; Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development, Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu; IIM, Kolkata; Maulana Azad Education Foundation; Centre for Development Economics and Ratan Tata Library, Delhi School of Economics; and Madras School of Economics.
The National Skill Development Council is on track to create a 150-million skilled workforce ahead of 2022. While Rs 658 crore was already sanctioned for 26 NSDC projects, the Budget okayed an additional Rs 500 crore for 2011-12.
Bhupendra Bangari, COO of BDO, a global advisory firm, said, “It is a budget for growth, investment, infrastructure and education. P Kishore, managing director of Everonn Education, said, “We at Everonn view with happiness and satisfaction the budgetary announcements.”