In a First Education Budget Crosses Rs1 Lakh Crore: MoS Education in Rajya Sabha

The government has increased the education budget for this financial year. Replying to queries during the question hour in the Upper House, Minister of State for Education, Subhas Sarkar said that the 15th Finance Commission provided a grant of Rs 6,143 crore for online learning and development of professional courses besides other grants. “This is the first-time in education, the budget has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore,” he said in response to a supplementary question by CPI’s Jharna Das Baidya on the Union budget announcements regarding increase in investment in the sector. Replying to another supplementary question on what are the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission on education sector, Sarkar said, “A grant of Rs 4,800 crore, and to incentivise six states, each year 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 for incentivising our education field.” Responding to Baidya’s question on whether any time limit has been fixed to achieve the target of GDP allocation for education, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, “The Centre and states work together to increase the public investment in education sector to reach six per cent of Gross Domestic Product at the earliest.” Ram Gopal Yadav also asked how long will the government take to meet the target of increasing public investment on education as a percentage of GDP to six per cent, considering it has increased from 4.07 per cent of GDP to 4.32 per cent in five years.