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Pradhan also tried his best to pat his back on the so-called response of the Centre, which included adoption of online classes and digital technology or providing financial assistance to states and Union Territories for undertaking identification and assessment of children with special needs, for aids and appliances, or appropriated teaching materials and stipend to girls students, or to measures for reducing the dropout rate etc.
But the ground reality is grim, and such words are not supported by action and sufficient financial support.
Let us take the example of the National Education Policy announced during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, after which the entire education scenario has changed in the country. Obviously, NEP 2020 needs to be changed in the light of new requirement in the post-pandemic era.
However, Modi government is yet to acknowledge that. Instead, it has been trying to implement the outdated NEP in piecemeal basis, and most of its proposed provisions are just ignored.
Modi government called for public investment on education at 6 per cent of GDP. The policy was framed in the financial year 2020-21 and for that year, the education expenditure of the country as percentage of GDP was only 3.1 per cent as per the revised estimate. Though it was greater than 2.8 per cent of 2019-20, it remained stagnant in 2021-22 at 3.1 per cent as per the budget estimate.
To meet the criteria of NEP 2020, the Centre should have almost doubled the education budget expenditure, but it increased its own budget for 2022-23 by only Rs 11,054 crore to Rs 1,04,278 crore compared to the previous year’s budget of Rs 93,223 crore which had reduced to Rs 88,002 crore in the revised estimate. What was called for by NEP was not even honoured by the government.
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