Wednesday 16 July, 2008

Budget For Children

“Education and health are the twin pillars on which rests the edifice of social sector reforms”, Mr. P. Chidambaram when presenting budget 2008-09. Given the Social, Economic and Political implications of Education, it only makes one wonder as to why not have a separate Education Budget like the Railways Budget! After all it is only Education on which an individuals’ Personality is based.
In the Budget, the total allocation for the Education sector including (NER) will be increased by 20 percent. One can only hope that all the Children in India are adequately covered. Certainty would have come, had the allocation been done after taking into account per head requirement and multiplying it by total number of target children.
The present methodology is not demand based but restricted by Supply side. One can go on increasing percentage share of Education in the GDP and still find it falling way short of the actual requirement.
As proposed in the Budget, the focus of SSA will shift from access and infrastructure at the primary level to enhancing retention, improving quality of learning and ensuring access to upper primary. Now if we don’t have the proper infrastructure and if it is not accessible then how do they propose to retain children in schools?
If Education that we are imparting remains diverged from the day to day requirements of a common man and doesn't help him pursue his aims, then no education policy will instigate people to send children to schools, or pull youth towards Higher studies.
Oxygen… a movement view

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

education is undoubtedly a money-minting sector but as a matter of fact investment in this sector has not been needful in context to our youth population. with limited supply of resources we can only absorb few more children in education system but that will be only superficially.the govt. needs to frame and implement proper budgeting in education sector.