Six states to get Rs 200 crore incentive every year for incentivising education sector

Responding to questions during Question Time in the Senate, State Minister for Education Subhas Sarkar said the 15th Finance Committee has provided a grant of Rs 6,143 crore for online learning and professional course development among other grants.

“This is the first time in education (sector) budget has exceeded Rs 1 lakh crore,” he said in response to a supplementary question from CPI(M) Jharna Das Baidya about the Union budget announcements with related to increasing investment in the sector.

In response to another supplementary question about what are the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission on the education sector, Sarkar said: “A grant of Rs 4,800 crore, and to boost six states, every year (there will be) Rs 200 crore incentive per year per state, and also a grant of Rs 6,143 crore for online learning and development of professional courses.These are to boost our educational field.”

In a statement in the Senate in response to a question from Baidya whether a time limit has been set to achieve the target of allocating GDP for education, the Union’s Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, said: “The Center and the states are working together to ensure that public investment in the education sector must reach 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the earliest.”

Ram Gopal Yadav (SP) also asked how long it will take for the government to meet the target of increasing public investment in education as a percentage of GDP to 6 percent, as this has increased from 4.07 percent of GDP (states and center together) to 4.32 percent in five years.

Although Sarkar did not provide a specific answer, he said the government has significantly increased spending on education.

“As a percentage of GDP, we are much higher than China when we look at the BRICS countries,” he said, adding that the government would achieve this year in a much better way through the participation of state, in a short period of time. center and public.

In response to a question about how much importance is attached to regional languages ​​in the National Education Policy (NEP), or whether regional
university level by P Bhattacharya (Congress), Pradhan said that attaching importance to local language and mother tongue is one of the main strategies of NEP.

The policy has placed the utmost importance on promoting critical thinking in school or higher education by allowing a pupil to learn in a language he or she feels most comfortable with, namely the mother tongue or the local language.

“AICTE has already started translating technical course books into the respective languages ​​in some parts of South India, some parts of West India and some parts of East India… Also, 14 institutions have already started teaching in the local language. The local language must be prioritized,” he said.
Pradhan also said that the entire focus of NEP and Samagra Shiksha is on improving the quality of education where dropout rates will be reduced and Prime Minister Poshan Abhiyan is also an ambitious program in that direction.

“Increasing the quality of education, the education quality of teachers, all of this that we are very much involved in, in consultation with the federal states. We are committed to improving the quality of teaching and learning to meet the expectations of the 21st century,” he said.

The minister responded to an additional question from Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya of CPI(M) about the measures taken by the government to reduce the dropout rate.