The Union Budget 2023-24, which has laid major emphasis on digitisation and upskilling, however, appears to have missed several facets which are believed to be key to the growth of the education industry. Even as the budget allocation for school education has increased 16.51% to 68,804.85 crore in 2023, the ed-tech sector, which roped up learning during the pandemic, has taken a complete miss this year. “The absence of ed-tech in the Union Budget is a missed opportunity. Emerging technologies such as metaverse, AR, and VR have the potential to revolutionise education harnessed by ed-techs. Including the sector in the budget would have demonstrated the government’s commitment to providing students with access to the latest technology,” Yuvraj Krishan Sharma, co-founder, CPO, Edverse, said.
The overall allocation for the education sector in the Union Budget 2023 has increased by around 8.3% to Rs 1.13-lakh crore compared to last year. However, it is still far from achieving the National Education Policy (NEP’s) target to increase the spending on education to six percent of the GDP. Currently, the share of education as a percentage of GDP remains stagnant at 2.9%, which is marginally up from 2016 level, the Economic Survey 2022-23 revealed. Moreover, the budgetary allocation for education in the last seven years has dropped to 9.5% of the total expenditure from 10.4%, the survey showed.
For the higher education sector, which saw an uptick of eight percent in the allocation to Rs 44,094.62 crore from Rs 40,828.35 crore in 2023, stakeholders believe efforts could have been better. “Indian HEIs/Universities have very limited or almost negligible endowment corpus compared to their global peers. The government could have allowed 200% income tax deduction for contribution towards payment of tuition and hostel fees. This would have made higher education affordable for students from the economically weaker section and improved the government’s relatively low (2.9%) allocation in education,” Atish Chattopadhyay, director, JAGSoM and vice chancellor, Vijaybhoomi University, said.
At the school education level, the budget has announced several initiatives such as push for National Digital Library to promote access to quality education and recover learning loss during COVID-19, alongside creation of National Book Trust and Children Book Trust. However, no funds have been allocated for these projects in the Union Budget 2023. “Construction of schools as a part of development could have been prioritised over mere mention of smart classrooms,” experts opined.
Other announcements for the education sector in the Union Budget 2023 includes a bid for inclusive education through the recruitment of 38,800 teachers for the 740 model Eklavya Model Residential Schools which serves 3.5 lakh tribal students. The government has further announced the setting up of three Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in top educational institutes, 100 5G-enabled laboratories, research grants, new nursing colleges, extension of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY 4.0) and more.