Budget 2020 India: Indications of opening the education sector is good news for the economy. The FM, in her Budget speech, said, “Steps would be taken to enable sourcing external commercial borrowings and foreign direct investment (FDI) so as to deliver higher quality education,” in a softening of stance towards the idea of foreign universities. But there is still a long way to go if the country is to attract any university. Given the stringent conditions in the sector—the government only wants a Harvard or Stanford—it may be impossible to attract anyone until the government relaxes norms. Same is the case with external commercial borrowings, which, as the government puts it, is required to achieve “greater inflow of finance to attract talented teachers, innovate and build better labs”.
Willingness is, undoubtedly, a big step, but unless the government specifies rules under which this can be allowed and does not make the process bureaucratic by asking to funnel funds through its bodies, the efforts to reform education would be for nought. Education institutions, at present, as per a Ficci-KPMG white paper, generate Rs 15,000 crore of surplus annually, which can only be invested in certain places. Unless the government allows institutes freedom over control of their funds, they will not be able to raise money from the market.
Given that the government’s expenditure in terms of education has been dwindling, it is undoubtedly the need of the hour. The government has been claiming that education is its top priority, but budgetary allocations do not indicate this. Indeed, while the budgeted amount for FY21 has increased to Rs 99,311.52 crore, the quantum of increase has reduced drastically as compared to last year. While the revised estimates for FY20 highlight an 18.1% increase in allotment for primary, secondary and higher education over the FY19 numbers, the budgeted figures for the next fiscal only show a 4.7% increase. Despite the government claiming to improve the quality of higher education, Budget numbers indicate that growth in expenditure here has declined from 21% last year to a mere 3% in FY21.
The government has increased allocations for the skill development programme, allocating Rs 3,002 crore for the ministry, an increase of 19%, but it has little to show in terms of skill development over the last few years. Of the over one crore persons it was targeted to train since 2016 under three different programmes under PMKVY 2.0, by the ministry’s admission, it was able to enrol only 69 lakh, of which 66 lakh got trained, and only 50 lakh got certified. What’s more is that only a meagre 15 lakh—one-fourth of those trained—ended up with jobs.
Apprenticeship programmes and use of engineering freshers as interns for urban local bodies will undoubtedly address these constraints. But more compelling is the government’s proposal to allow 150 higher educational institutions to start apprenticeship-embedded degree/diploma courses in March 2021.
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In the medical sector, an old demand of allowing linking of district hospitals with medical colleges is a positive step, as it will create more seats and also address the issue of shortage of doctors.
While the government has announced online learning by extending such benefits to top 100 institutions in the NIRF rankings, unless it implements the new education policy, there is little chance much would change.