Once again, the education sector has received the highest allocation in the Budget. With Rs 15,680 crore set aside for primary and secondary education and Rs 3,243 crore for higher education, the new government’s focus is on increasing gross enrollment ratio of girls. Girls in Class I in government schools will be given Rs 2 for each day’s attendance. The Budget also proposed to new government women colleges in 15 districts. Similarly activities of the Karnataka State Women’s University, Bijapur, would be extended to the entire State through an extension centre at Mandya. For this Rs 30 crore would be allocated. B S Sudhindra, former director, National Council of Education Research and Training, expressed concerns over the attendance scheme. “As an administrator, I feel giving Rs 2 for attendance to girls in unnecessary. Money is never a positive incentive,” he said. Another major announcement was taking steps to ensure English as a subject in Class I. This was a suggestion by several leading Kannada litterateurs, including two in Siddaramaiah’s inner circle, Jnanpith awardee U R Ananthamurthy and critic K Marulasiddappa. The language of instruction is still Kannada. Focus in the Budget is also on improving infrastructure in government schools, which will be restructured as ‘Shikshana Samarasya Vidya Kendras’. The government intends to rope in philanthropists, institutions and corporate sectors to actively participate in school development programmes. The government has also proposed restructuring of the SSLC and PUC examination management system. They intend to provide information about the exam online. But, the conspicuous absence of Right to Education (RTE) in the new budget has irked many. “In an allocation where 90 per cent will go towards salaries, I am surprised that RTE does not even figure in the Budget. It is a social legislation passed by the same party at the Centre, and I the expected the government to have given details on how much it has allocated for its implementation,” said V P Niranjan Aradhya, fellow, Centre for the Child and Law, National Law School of India University. Innovation clubs in all institutions and a collaboration with World Economic Forum to train 10,000 students under the Open Source Leaders Programme are the new additions to the higher education allocation. Fifteen colleges would be set up in educationally backward blocks, while 25 government colleges will get a one-time grant of Rs 2 crore to become eligible for autonomy. One time development grant of Rs 5 crore each will be provided to the newly-established Rani Chennamma University, Belgaum, Women’s University, Bijapur and Davangere University. Vacant teaching posts would be filled up to provide a new “fillip” to higher education. “Filling up vacancies is the need of the hour as universities and colleges have suffered a lot due to shortage of faculty. While all this is welcome, I expected the state to do something to improve research by way of giving incentives to departments that have done good research,” said K Siddappa, former Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor. “The overall direction taken by the government broadly shows its intent to improve quality. It looks like a comprehensive road map,’’ said Anand Nagarajan, CEO of Dexler Information System.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 07:30:07 +0000
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