Letter from the Editor
Although I have served as the editor of several business publications, I’ve always been dissatisfied with the overwhelming monetary bias of the budget presentation process in Parliament and state assemblies. Government budgets always tell us how much of the taxpayers’ money they intend to spend, but seldom account for the money already spent. In a rather grotesque parody of the story of the emperor who made out that he was clad in the finest Dacca muslin when in reality he wasn’t wearing anything at all, post-independence India’s intellectuals and the media embraced the propaganda that the huge sectoral allocations announced in budget after budget would automatically translate into socially beneficial projects. Indeed, budgets apart, Soviet-style central planning — the failed great white hope of Indian socialism — was premised upon Prof. Mahalanobis’ simplistic input-output model.Now with the benefit of hindsight, there is greater awareness that socio-economic development isn’t as easy as throwing money at problems. Investments in plans and projects require detailed implementation and monitoring, or plans of great pith and moment — together with the money allocated — can disappear into thin air. That’s why in my opinion one of the most significant passages in the Union budget 2005-06 made in Parliament by finance minister P. Chidambaram on February 28, was one which officially admits, perhaps for the first time ever, that "outlays do not necessarily mean outcomes". To rectify this glaring lacuna of the annual Union budget formulation process, he has proposed to consult with the Planning Commission to "put in place a mechanism to measure the development outcomes of all major programmes". It’s a promise to which his ministry will be strictly held by this publication.
This momentous commitment apart, Union budget 2005-06 is a welcome departure from its predecessors inasmuch as it reflects an overdue awareness that universal education is the building block of the national development effort. As detailed in our first-of-its-type cover story, statistically handsome provisions have been made for education in budget 2005-06. Moreover there is an unprecedented awareness in this budget of the linkage between widespread child poverty rooted in the multiple child deprivations — healthcare, nutrition, shelter etc — which the nation’s neglected children are heir to, and education.
Yet following decades of neglect, the accumulated backlog in Indian education is so huge, that incremental budgeting, generous as it is in budget 2005-06, will make an insignificant impact upon the — there’s no other word — horrible child poverty that characterises contemporary India. That’s why our cover story suggests needs or zero based budgeting for the education and allied sectors. In effect this requires detailed assessment of the educational needs of the nation’s 415 million children and then to raise the resources required, come what may. I don’t claim our cover story has all the answers, but it will fulfill its purpose if it stimulates a national debate on ways and means to give the nation’s children — its future — a squarer deal.
And important as is real education for all children, the continuous education of teachers — sine qua non — is no less. For our second lead feature EducationWorld correspondents across the country spoke to an eclectic mix of educationists, teacher trainers and school principals to suggest supplementary reading lists for the teachers’ community this summer.
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