Bearing in mind the newly-installed Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal’s ambitious blueprint for the expansion and upgradation of Indian education, on the eve of the first Union budget 2009-10 of the Congress-led UPA-2 government in New Delhi on July 6, I fell asleep with a dream of peace and great expectations. I fully expected Sibal’s cabinet colleague, Congress party veteran and Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to present a budget in which the long-neglected subject of education of India’s 450 million children would be given pride of place. Therefore it came as a shock that in his 120-minute budget speech to Parliament and an expectant nation the following day, Mukherjee devoted barely five minutes to education.
Indeed, perhaps for the first time ever, the Union budget presentation speech neglected to mention the Central government’s annual outlay for education in 2009-10 (Rs.44,528 crore). Although the provision, buried away in the fine print of budget papers, is 20 percent higher than the amount budgeted for 2008-09, it adds up to a mere 0.79 percent of GDP, nowhere near the need of Indian education. Admittedly, this provision of the Central government will be augmented by provisions made for education by state governments. But if the Centre is so niggardly, it is difficult to envisage cash-strapped state governments altogether providing more than 2 percent of GDP (Rs.106,000 crore) for education. Therefore this year’s aggregate outlay for education of the country’s 200 million children and youth enroled in education institutions is likely to slip below 3 percent of GDP, against the minimum required 6 percent.
Astonished by the failure of the finance minister to disclose the Central government’s outlay for education, and neglect of distinguished economists and pundits to comment on the miserly provision for education in their erudite post-budget analyses in the broadcast and mainstream media, this month’s cover story has been written with considerable anguish, if not despair. With their own children securely enroled in globally comparable English medium schools which eases entry into the country’s few high-end, heavily-subsidised colleges and universities, the middle class intelligentsia doesn’t seem to care a jot about education of the children of the unwashed majority who are left to the tender mercies of state-level politicians and educrats neck-deep in teacher appointment and recruitment, and textbook printing rackets.
Within the economic ministries in North Block, New Delhi and the intelligentsia, the cri de couer is that the Central and state governments don’t have the resources to double education budgets. Wrong. Our cover story includes a blueprint to equip every government primary countrywide with a library, laboratory, and lavatories. India has the hidden wealth to make this possible. All that’s lacking is political — and middle class — will.
And if there’s a strain of despair in this month’s cover story, the special report feature written by Chennai correspondent Hemalatha Raghupathi offers hope that the unfolding online education revolution will dramatically improve teaching-learning standards in higher education.
Meanwhile results of the Cfore-EducationWorld annual survey (2009) of India’s most respected schools are streaming in. Stand by for surprises next month.
