Double The Education Budget This Year, Say Experts

The allocated budget for education is around 4 per cent of the entire GDP. Panellist at the Business World Budget Expectation Roundtable today in New Delhi shared their opinion on the upcoming budget. They feel that government should double the budget for education in the upcoming union budget 2017.

There are various loopholes in the education system and the first thing that needs to bring is transparency which will curb corruption feels Dr. H Chaturvedi, Director BIMTECH.

The education system in India has seen some changes in the past years but still, we lack behind when it comes to the quality of education comparing to European countries.

Citing an example, Satya Narayanan, Executive Chairman, CL Educate feels “Different states are executing metros in their cities because they have a role model with a good leadership. We need the same execution in India as far as the education system is a concern.”

One of the significant problem is the development of quality of teachers and where all these budget should be allocated. It can be argued today that India has more or less solved the issue of access to education as a country whether it’s a school or higher education.

Narayanan feels that its time to follow excellence. If we follow excellence, it will make our college and university finest in the world. Adding to that Dr Chaturvedi said, “Spending on education has been taken care and most of the times salary goes to the employees and hardly anything left for development in education.”

Previous government has an important education program Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. We need more based schemes in order to connect the outcomes. The government should spend with an objective for an outcome.

Chairman of NPSC, Ashok K Pandey highlighted, the biggest challenge in the education system is expansion. Primary schools are expanded enough but when it comes to a higher level of education such as universities, government figures suggest it is around 23 per cent but in practical it is less than that.

Pandey added, “We have a huge deficit in terms of training as well, on an average we have 10 lakh, people, to train but we have only 3 lakh trainer, there is a huge deficit of teachers.

Experts feel we the solution of this problem lies within. The teacher has to be at the centre stage of training institution and we need to train our children which will be a guiding model as well. The Kendriya and Navodaya model should be expanded.

Educational loans should become easier
The major roadblock for higher education is education loan. The banking facility for the education loan is not efficient and rate of interest is very high and the repayment period is too short. Experts feel loan process and rate of interest should be eased. This is one of the major roadblocks for a student and they don’t become an en employer after completing their education but looking out for the job. The major reason is after they complete their education the students are sitting on minus 16 to 20 lakh of education loan and unable to start something of their own.

Narayanan said, “We need an innovation-driven country, every student should be employment giver and not employment seeker.”

Experts feel that we need to make a five to a ten-year framework for the education system and not to jump budget to budget.