In Nirmala Sitharaman’s marquee 2021-’22 budget, the allocation for education was 6.1% less than the allocation made in 2020-’21. The minis...
In Nirmala Sitharaman’s marquee 2021-’22 budget, the allocation for education was 6.1% less than the allocation made in 2020-’21. The ministry of education got an allocation of Rs 93,224 crores. Of the total, the school education and literacy sector was allotted the majority of funds, with Rs 54873.66 crore. The remaining Rs 38,350.65 crore was allotted to the higher education sector.
Gross Enrolment Ratio at the elementary level (Classes I-VIII) has been consistently high, at around 97%. This indicates that almost every Indian child is going to school. Despite this, students don’t seem to be learning anything in school at all. Only 44.2% of all students in government schools in Class V in India are able to read a Class II text. The situation is worse for numeracy: only 22.7% of all students in government schools in Class V are able to do division. India has been in the midst of a learning crisis for a long time now.
The potential impact of this is enormous. An entire generation of children are entering the economy and the workforce with severe learning poverty. Only a small percentage of children are becoming well-equipped to handle these challents. This leads to the creation of different “classes” of learners. A function of...
