Union budget a boon for education sector

The general feedback is that the Union budget 2011 has covered the maximum segments of the society.

With the underlying principle, that the Budget can't possibly satisfy each and every segment, the popular opinion is that, it has tried to do a balancing act between most sectors and yet kept an eye on the populist approach.

Education sector too, received its good share of goodies. It has been an exciting year for the education sector and Pranab Da has put the icing on the cake by paying detailed attention to education.

The education spends have gone up by nearly 24%. One wonders why the budget allocation is going up, since the responsibility of free and compulsory education is now passed on to the private schools through the Right to Education Act (RTE).

Salary of Anganwadi workers has been increased 100% from Rs1,500 to Rs3,000 and from Rs750 to Rs1,500. Improving the quality of primary education is the cornerstone for the growth of every developing economy, so this step is in the right direction.

A slight detail for accountability and responsibility by putting checks and blackness to improve the quality of teaching and to reduce absenteeism would have completed the picture.

Moving away from the norm, for the first time, the Budget made scholarship reservations for the Schedule Castes and Tribe and recommended the vocationalisation of secondary education.

Allocation of 40% was made to Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan- a programme that was conceived with a target ending in the year 2010.

It was interesting that the union budget would allocate monies for minority groups and specific institutions.

Maulana Azad University and Aligarh Muslim University and IIM, Kolkata were among the many beneficiaries. And as Pranab Da went onto allocate funds for Rabindranath Tagore centenary, for a while, when the details of the education sector budget was being spelt out, it made the budget resemble a department reading, rather than the reading of the union budget for a country with one billion people.  

Certain sectors are extra priced, but there again the general feeling is that the below the poverty line segment, defined as those earning less than $2-a-day and the lower middle income group that earns less than $10-a-day has largely benefited, the taxpaying minority which consist of the 3% of population has been taxed. So eating out is going to be dearer, wearing branded clothes and jewellery will get costlier, which will mean that women will look more towards the costume jewellery and the Bling markets segments.

Whether or not the union budget satisfied other segments, it was more than satisfactory for the education sector.

One wish that remained unfulfilled is since the private schools and institutions are now partnering with the government in implementing its responsibility of free and compulsory education, a tax exemption in education infrastructure would have fuelled the private companies to invest in the sector.

The corollary of that would have resulted in a more affordable fee structure especially in the higher education where the fees are exorbitant for the average middle income group and the 'aam aadmi'.

Education sector being heavily reliant on capital investment, tax exemption on investment in infrastructure investment would have been a sure respite.

The writer is  an entrepreneur and educationist