Today’s budget reflected the strong commitment to take up the education sector, ref to NEP 2020, reforms. Setting up of HECI as a central regulatory authority subsuming all other regulatory bodies; allocation of 50k cr for NRF are in the right direction.
Continued efforts on Skill development are seen with the announcement of international partnership in designing skill programs by mapping employment needs in those partner countries.
- Upscaling 15000 schools to become model schools and to mentor other schools in their respective areas is a sound strategy to improve quality of education.
- Setting up of 700+ Eklavya schools shall make quality education accessible to trible and SC/ST students.
- Institutions in nine cities to be identified as umbrella Institutions which intern shall mentor institutions in other cities and towns to improve quality and ease of compliance and accreditation is a welcome move.
- National Language translation institution to work on localisation of internet content in prominent Indian languages is a right move in the direction of promoting education in mother tongue.
Overall, it is a satisfying budget as far as the Education sector is concerned. However, we are left wanting on expectation of special emphasis on strengthening digital infrastructure for seamless delivery of online education.
