Education & Aspiring India

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TOPIC: General Studies 2:

• Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
• Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education

In News: In the Union Budget 2020, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has suggested speedy implementation of the new education policy, besides several measures that will bring in a paradigm shift in the educational systems and creation of employment in India and abroad. 

• By 2030, India will have the largest working-age population in the world
• Around 35-50 million children are out of school and 40 per cent of adolescent girls are not attending school.
• It is an integral part of the three themes — Aspiration, development, compassion – of this year’s budget.
• According to the Economic Survey, 
  • The average annual expenditure of the government for primary education is Rs 1,253 per child, whereas private institutions spend Rs 12,889 per child. It indicates why government schools perform poorly and gradually close down.
  • As per the recent 2019-2020 statistics, the compliance rate for implementing the Right to Education Act is just 12 per cent
• The Economic Survey has also pushed for 
  • Privatisation of education
  • More flexible labour regulation
  • Better connectivity to villages to fast-track entrepreneurship at the bottom of the administrative pyramid

Money allocation

• Earmarked Rs 99,300 crore for the education sector
• In the previous Union Budget, the government’s allocation for the sector was Rs 94,800 crore. 

Skill Development 

• Earmarked about Rs 3,000 crore from the above mentioned figure for skill development
• About 150 higher educational institutions will start apprenticeship embedded degree/diploma courses by March 2021 and will start a programme whereby urban local bodies across the country would provide internship opportunities to fresh engineers for a period up to one year. 
• A project preparation facility for infrastructure projects involving young engineers and management graduates will be set up
• Focus on Healthcare Academics: The Budget took cognizance of the human resource shortage in healthcare — both general practitioners and specialists. 
  • It announced a viability gap funding which will be extended to attach a medical college to every hospital through a PPP model.
  • The Skill Development ministry will begin bridge courses including language-requirement courses to address overseas demand for nurses, paramedics and caregivers

Infrastructure

• Steps would be taken to enable sourcing External Commercial Borrowings and FDI so as to able to deliver higher quality education. Foreign funding avenues to supplement the present public expenditure in the sector can help harness the potential of the sector and exploit this demographic dividend to its fullest.
• Institutions that are ranked within top 100 in the National Institutional Ranking framework will start degree level full-fledged online education programme for students of deprived section of the society. 
• A National Police University and a National Forensic Science University have also been proposed in the domain of policing science, forensic science, cyber-forensics etc.
• Indian Institute of Heritage and Conversation to be set up as a Deemed University.
• The computer-based Common Eligibility Test will be rolled out for the recruitment to non-gazetted posts. The online test will be carried by an independent agency, the National Recruiting Agency.

Study in India: Ind-SAT examinations would be held in Asian and African countries, so as to enable overseas students to apply to Indian institutions for academic programmes.

Must Read: Salient Features of New National Education Policy