Union Budget - Announcements for the Education Sector

What does the budget hold for the Education sector?

• Union budget has allocated Rs85,010 crores for the sector for 2018-19.
• This was less than 4% increase from the previous year’s estimate, which was probably because the government didn’t have enough fiscal room.
• The budget has intended to focus on education holistically without segmentation from pre-nursery to Class XII.
• This would imply that the government is viewing an integrationist approach by merger of several school schemes in the near future.
• 3% education cess will be replaced with a 4% education and health cess, which is expected to enhance revenue by about Rs.11,000 crores.

What are Ekalavya Schools?

• The union budget has proposed for the comprehensive expansion of the “Ekalavya Residential School” to every tribal majority block in the country.
• Asserting it’s committed to provide the best quality education to the tribal children in their own environment, the budget envisions an ambitious mission.
• By 2022, it has been targeted that every block with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal persons, will have an Ekalavya school.
• Ekalavya schools will have special facilities for preserving local art and culture, besides sports and skill development initiatives.

What is the RISE scheme? 

• Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) scheme, was launched to revitalize the infrastructure of higher educational institutions.
• RISE scheme will be financed via a restructured “Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) that has been constituted as a non-bank finance company.
• HEFA was created to infuse fiscal discipline among government higher educational institutions by giving loans rather than budgetary grants.
• Its purpose is to lend low-cost funds to government higher educational institutions, and will rise Rs1 trillion for the purpose.
• While HEFA was granted a budgetary allocation of Rs250 crores in the current budget, for FY19, an allocation of Rs2,750 crores is envisioned.
• Significantly, the mechanism by which HEFA raises funds and the capacity of institutions to repay loans (taken from HEFA) needs to be closely watched.

How does the fund distribution across the sector look?

• Of the total Ed-fund, school education has Rs50,000 crores, and the rest Rs35,010 crores has gone to the higher education sector.
• In the school sector, SSA has been allocated a budget of Rs26,128 crores up from Rs23,500 crores in the previous budget.
• Similarly, “Rastriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan” (RMSA) will be provided with Rs4,213 crores, up by Rs300 crores from the previous budget.
• The flagship school meal programme of Mid-day-Meal will get Rs10,500 crores in FY19, an increase of Rs500 crores from the previous budget.
• Notably, allocation for both central school chains of Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas has gone down.
• In the higher education space, the total budgetary allocation has been reduced for IITs and IIMs considerably.
• Despite its digital education push, Budget 2018 has cut fund allocation for e-learning from Rs518 crores to Rs456 crores.

Source: Live Mint