Bud proposes restructuring UGC, boost to e-learning, separate test agency

Restructuring of UGC, setting up of National Testing Agency to conduct entrance tests, an innovation fund for secondary education and launch of SWAYAM programme on the lines of MOOC courses are among the initiatives the Centre today as it increased the budget allocation to the education sector by over 10 per cent.
In his budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced allocation of Rs 46,356.25 crore to Department of School Education and Literacy and Rs 33,329.70 crore to department of Higher Education.
"An Innovation Fund for Secondary Education will be created to encourage local innovation for ensuring universal access, gender parity and quality improvement. This will include ICT-enabled learning transformation. The focus will be on 3,479 educationally backward blocks," he said in budget speech.

"We propose to leverage information technology and launch SWAYAM platform with at least 350 online courses. This would enable students to virtually attend the courses taught by the best faculty; access high quality reading resources; participate in discussion forums; take tests and earn academic grades.
"Access to SWAYAM would be widened by linkage with DTH channels, dedicated to education," Jaitley added.
HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar hailed the budget as "revolutionary" and referred to it as a budegt for "Better India".

"This is a revolutionary budget, budget which is development-oriented, budget which honours honest tax payers #BudgetForBetterIndia," he tweeted.
The Centre also announced that there will be a restructuring of UGC to ensure greater autonomy for institutions and with an aim of granting autonomous status to more colleges in the country.

"In higher education, we will undertake reforms in the UGC. Good quality institutions would be enabled to have greater administrative and academic autonomy. Colleges will be identified based on accreditation and ranking, and given autonomous status. A revised framework will be put in place for outcome based accreditation and credit based programmes," the Finance Minister said in the budget speech.
Announcing the establishment of a separate agency for conducting entrance examinations, Jaitley said, "we propose to establish a National Testing Agency as an autonomous and self-sustained premier testing organisation to conduct all entrance examinations for higher education institutions."
"This would free CBSE, AICTE and other premier institutions from these administrative responsibilities so that they can focus more on academics," he added.

A system of measuring annual learning outcomes in schools, enhanced emphasis on science education and flexibility in curriculum to promote creativity through local innovative content, launching of Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion programme (SANKALP) at a cost of Rs 4,000 crore and a special scheme for creating employment in leather and footwear industries, are among the other initiatives announced by the government.