Presenting the first Budget of the NDA government in its second term, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government will bring in a new national education policy to transform India’s higher education system to one of the best in the world.
1. The union budget Friday allocated Rs. 94,853.64 crore for education sector in 2019-20, an increase of nearly Rs.10,000 crore of what 2018-19 budget estimates had pegged for the sector.
2. The much hyped PM fellowship scheme fund has been reduced from Rs. 75 crore in 2018-19 to Rs. 50 crore this fiscal.
3. However, the total allocation for research and innovation has been bumped up from Rs. 350 crore last fiscal to Rs. 609 crore in the current fiscal. In fact, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday proposed to establish a National Research Foundation to fund and promote research, a proposal was first proposed in the draft new education policy already in public domain.
4. In the higher education sector, the budget 2019 has reduced allocation to both the education regulators – the University Grants Commission [UGC] and the All India Council for Technical Education.
5. However, the allocation to central universities in total has been increased by nearly Rs. 400 crore to Rs. 6,843 crore. The IITs has been allocated Rs. 6,410 crore this year as against Rs. 6,326 crore budget allocation in 2018-19.
6. 'Study in India' programme
Sitharaman said to build “world-class institutions” in the field of education, Rs 400 crore has been allocated for the 2019-20 fiscal, which is over three times the revised estimates for the previous year. The finance minister also announced the ‘Study in India’ programme that will focus on attracting foreign students to the country’s higher education institutes.
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