Budget 2017: Govt to give more autonomy for higher educational institutions

Government also promises to fast track science education

The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley while presenting the General Budget 2017-18 in Parliament on Wednesday proposed to create innovative fund for secondary education for ensuring universal access, gender parity and quality improvement. 

Delivering his Budget Speech, the finance minister said this will include ICT enabled learning, transformation and the focus will be on 3,479 educationally backward blocks.

He also proposed to introduce a system of measuring annual learning outcome in schools. Jailtley said that emphasis will be given on science education and flexibility in curriculum to promote creativity through local innovative content.

In higher education, the government will undertake reforms in the UGC. Good quality institutions would be enabled to have greater administrative and academic autonomy. In his Budget Speech, the FM said that the 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.