Does Budget 2017-18 Promise Enough For Education Sector?

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the recently held Union Budget 2017-18 quoted the great spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda and said, “The education which does not help the common mass of people to equip themselves for the struggle of life…is it worth the name?” While the FM has shown his commitment to the youth by announcing substantial reforms such as the establishment of National Testing Agency (NTA), Reforming University Grants Commission (UGC), setting up two new AIIMS in Gujarat and Jharkhand, launching of SWAYAM platform and similar such measures, the timely implementation of all these initiatives is what is required from the government.

While the Budget looks at several revolutionary steps to boost the quality of education, it lacks in identifying the fundamental steps, such as transforming and empowering school education. The budget does give a mention on primary education along with teacher training and development, but there is no effective blueprint that maps the process, or specifies the role of technology in it. While the FM has announced reforms in higher education, which is a welcome move, the seed should have been sown at the school level to assist students be more technologically aware, especially at the grassroots level. While focusing on enhancing the amenities provided to higher education, The FM has failed to put a spotlight on leveraging technology at the school level, which is essential on a massive scale. Given the government’s focus on Digital India, adequate investments to equip a larger number of government schools with tech-based learning formats would have certainly helped to enhance the quality of education. With this move, every student could have been able to access quality education across the country. The start should have been initiated at the school level to bridge the skill gap between academic world and industry.

Another case in point is the introduction of measuring annual learning outcomes in schools and an innovation fund for secondary education. While these announcements of the government are in the right direction, the emphasis should have been laid on quality of education delivered in schools even before measuring the outcomes. Leveraging technology towards learning, evaluating the skills of the student and mapping students to the right programs suited to their skill set are the essential prerequisites to be adopted before announcing measuring learning outcomes.

Significant gaps exist in the delivery of education, infrastructure of schools, and adoption of technology and latest methods of learning. Until these issues are addressed, the learning outcomes won’t be effective. Therefore, the Centre should have made announcements with adequate focus towards substantial investments necessary for upgrading the process of imparting education. While the recent government has made great strides to upskill India, taking into consideration a working population of 860 million by 2020, radical approaches are sought from the government.

Overall, from an education sector perspective, the Union Budget 2017-18 has failed to touch upon various areas such as infrastructure upgradation, teacher training, all-round assessment of schools, influx of technology in teaching, career planning and skill-individual mapping, skill development implementation and school-industry collaboration. These fundamentals should have been given priority before the introduction of any transformational changes in the education budget.

With respect to start-ups, while the Union Budget has given some respite in terms of taxes, what’s more essential was an overall eco-system conducive to do business. While the ambitious Startup India Movement proposed by PM Narendra Modi sounds promising, it needs to provide government bodies enough budget to support innovation oriented start-ups which are not only looking for financial subsidies. In the edtech space, there are immense opportunities and innumerable innovations that can improve the quality of education being offered to students; what is required of the government is sufficient support in terms of expenditure and a conducive regulatory framework that looks for long-term transformations to the most important human-resource strengthening structure of the country.