fe@campus, a collaborative and cynosure initiative taken by The Financial Express in sync with a variety of higher education institutes representing today?s youth, provides students an opportunity to pen their views on trends and trendsetters in the world of business. For this week, we put forth the topic: ?What should be the optimum percentage of GDP allocation towards education?? Students of the School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala, sent us their essays. Here is the best one:

The recently tabled Union Budget by the finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on February 28, 2011, increased the allocation towards education by 24% over the previous year. This increase is for the total government spending across all areas of education. In India, spending is not evenly distributed at all levels. Educational spending is one indicator of the level of resourcing in schools. Comparing educational spending with GDP can be an indicator of the importance of education, according to government policy makers.

However, this indicator can be misleading if the GDP is significantly higher or lower than what is expected. For education, Mukherjee proposed an allocation of R52,057 crore. ?Our demographic dividend, a relatively younger population compared to developed countries, is as much of an opportunity as it is a challenge.

Over 70% of India will be of working age by 2025. In this context universalising access to secondary education, increasing percentage of our scholars in higher education and providing skills training is necessary,? he had said. Also, there is an upliftment for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

But more steps need to be taken, because the spending is decent, where the government should now focus on is implementation. The pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools in India is very low (1:40) compared with countries like UK (1:21) and Japan (1:19), overall developed countries (13.7) and global (1:24), despite the fact that India allocates more expenditure as a percentage of GDP on education.

Though the Budget does bring some cheer to the education sector, it is quite clear financial allocations alone aren?t sufficient. A systemic change is required to boost the standards of education both at the primary and higher education levels. Allowing high-quality foreign universities to participate through own campuses and collaborations to improve best practices, processes, curriculum, teacher training, etc, could be the game-changer India needs.

The author is a second year MBA student at the School of Management Studies, Punjabi University, Patiala