“Very Disappointing”: BIMTECH Director on curtailment in allocation to the education sector disrupted by Covid-19

On Tuesday, while speaking to Ten News on Union Budget 2021, BIMTECH Director Dr. H. Chaturvedi expressed his disappointment towards curtailment in the allocation for the education sector. “We were expecting more allocation for the education sector particularly in the wake of NEP 2020, the policy itself said that the government will ensure 6% of GNP for the education sector, but instead of increasing allocation for the education sector, there is a reduction of Rs 6,000 crores. This year around Rs. 93000 crores have been allocated for the education sector, previous year it was around Rs. 99,000 crores.”

BIMTECH Director further added, “The allocation to the education sector is very disappointing because not only the health sector has been devastated by the covid-19, but even our education sector has suffered a lot. We have 24 crore students in schools and 4 crore in colleges and universities, and for last 8-9 months, colleges / universities and schools have been shut due to health reasons, and the shift towards online mode did not do justice, because unless and until our students have enough resources to receive the online education, we cannot assume that their losses of not going to schools / colleges / universities have been compensated by the online education.”

Explaining why more allocation for the education sector was needed in this Union Budget, Dr. Chaturvedi said, “It was a big disruption in education sector and it was expected of the government to allocate more to the education sector to bring it back to the normalcy and ensure health and safety in schools and colleges through provisions like sanitization, toilet facilities, social distancing. How all these things are possible without increasing allocation for schools and colleges / universities?”

On the complaints of the private players in the education sector regarding unequal treatment by the government, BIMTECH Director said, “Education is a national sector, whosoever is running schools, college and universities should be given equal treatment, it is also mentioned in the NEP 2020.”

“Now in higher education, 70-80% students are studying in private colleges and universities, although the government can say that we are not responsible for poor infrastructure in the private sector, they should do it themselves, this would not be a sound logic, if we have to improve the quality of education, we have to support everybody.”