Budget 2018: Allocation to Education Sector Expected to Rise by 14%

According to sources, the government is expected to increase the allocation to the education sector by 14% in Budget 2018. The school education will get a boost through the rise in the allocation and it will accelerate the existing schemes for school students. The budget allocation for the school sector will be over Rs. 463.596 billion in 2018. An official revealed that Right to Education (RTE) and mid-day meal scheme are expected to get higher allocation than 2017. Finance Minister will introduce Budget 2018 in Parliament on February 01, 2018.

Apart from RTE and mid-day meal scheme, the government will also make enough allocation to mapping of learning outcomes, innovation in skills and national assessment survey. However, the allocation will be much lesser than the demand made by the Education Ministry. The aim is to spend 6% GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on education. Currently, India spends 4 percent of GDP on the education sector.

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The increased allocation will benefit over 250 million students pursuing the education in 1.5 million schools across the country.

National Council for Education Research and Training is planning to map learning outcomes of students in various districts. The districts, that are found lagging will get the additional financial boost under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The major focus on NCERT will be on teaching-learning outcomes. SSA is expected to spend over 40% of its budget on improving quality of school learning.

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The government has started the process of creating 20 world class institutes and the selection of institutes for the ‘Institute of Eminence’ tag will be finalised in March 2018.