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Dr. A.S. Seetharamu is a former professor of education at the Institute of Social and Economic Change, Bangalore and currently education advisor to the Karnataka government.
The finance minister has taken credit for raising the education outlay of the Central government by 24 percent over last year. How satisfied are you with this provision?
The provision especially for elementary education is much better than it has been in the recent past. Yet given the grave insufficiency in the number of government secondaries and higher secondaries in the country, the grant is very inadequate. In 2008-09, there were 192,274 government upper primary schools and 38,295 government high schools, giving a ratio of one government high school for every five primaries. Children from disadvantaged sections of society are left to fend for themselves in fees-charging private sector aided and unaided schools after completing elementary education. The Union budget should have provided for student-specific subsidies and extension of the mid-day meal programme for poorer strata children in private aided secondary schools.
To what extent does the Centre’s budgetary outlay of Rs.52,000 crore for education — less than 1 percent of GDP — fulfil the needs of Indian education?
This provision of Rs.52,057 crore aggregates to a mere 0.58 percent of GDP projected at Rs.8980,860 crore for 2011-12 and 4.14 percent of total budget expenditure of Rs.1257,729 crore. This provision is grossly inadequate for the needs of Indian education.
How confident are you that the state governments will raise and expend the remaining Rs.307,178 crore required to bring the aggregate national (Centre plus states) outlay for education in 2011-12 to 4 percent of GDP?
It is doubtful whether state governments have the capacity or willingness to earmark special RTE linked allocations in their budgets. Except in 2001-02, aggregate expenditure — Centre plus states — on education has been less than 4 percent of GDP, with the expenditure on elementary education being less than 2 percent of GDP. The 4 percent of GDP target for elementary education seems an unreachable dream.
A growing number of educationists believe that the priority of Indian education should shift from outlays to outcomes. What’s your comment?
Fortunately the Planning Commission and Union HRD ministry are already on this track with even state governments following suit. Since last year they have been reviewing performance in a results framework perspective, using educational indicators. I would like them to go a step further and link performance with skills generation, employment, poverty alleviation and entitlements of the poorer strata of society.
How optimistic are you about the future of Indian education and about the country being able to harvest its so-called demographic dividend?
The future of Indian education depends upon the level of sensitivity of the informed public, including the media, to the RTE Act and quality education for all. We need the pressure of public opinion for quality education for all, and the judiciary to regulate the State whose dynamics of functioning is suspect even if its intentions are not.