The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented the Union Budget for the financial year 2022-2023 today, February 1. Although the Union Budget this year has aimed to strengthen digital learning by establishing a new Digital University, several organisations and forums have criticised the Finance Minister's budget citing poor allocation of funds and neglecting key issues.
While the overall budget allocation of the Department of School Education and Literacy in the financial year 2022-23 is Rs 63,449.37 crore in the out of which Scheme allocation is Rs. 51,052.37 crore and non- scheme allocation is Rs 12,397 crore, overall budget allocation of Higher Education in the next financial year 2022-23 is Rs 40,828.35 crore out of which Scheme allocation is Rs 7,454.97 crore and Non - Scheme allocation is Rs 33,373.38 crore. The outlay for the financial aid schemes for the marginalised, minority, poor and female students has either reduced or risen marginally.
The Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) has said that the Union Budget 2022 has failed to arrest the downward spiral of education. “The status quo maintained in the planned spending highlights the utter neglect of the pandemic-hit education sector,” SIO said, adding that the two year of Covid pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented academic loss of students at all levels.
“We were hoping for the Budget to provide a major boost to education and remedy this loss, but it has been a disappointment. Barring a few e-learning initiatives, there wasn't much in the budget to address this issue. The digital education can only compliment the in-person learning and can never be an alternative,” SIO said.
The organsisation saying that after a year of a drastic drop in the education budget, the outlay being increased this year, much of the additional allotment has been directed towards the 'trickle down' schemes such as Rashtriya Uchchatar Shikshan Abhiyan (RUSA) and 'Examplar Schools' that favour only a few well-performing institutes and have proved to be little useful for the larger student community.
On the other hand, the outlay for the financial aid schemes for marginalised, minority, poor and female students has either reduced or risen marginally. This is a cause of concern, as the scholarships and fellowships are key to ensure social justice in the field of education. This reduction will likely further increase the educational disparity in the society, the student organisation added.
Also the RTE forum in a statement said: “Union Budget 2022-23 fails to address the challenges posed by digital learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, by focusing yet again on digital learning and proposing the expansion of e-VIDYA, instead of focusing on the need to re-open schools on a priority basis.”
The Union Budget presented by the Finance Minister, according to the RTE forum should have ensured safe school operations and re-opening of schools, enrolment and targeted support for learners who are at risk of not returning to school, especially, Dalits, Adivasis, girls, those living in poverty and persons with disabilities. The RTE forum also said that the budget should have support measures for recovering all marginalized students' learning loss and socio-emotional impact during the educational disruption by providing for in-person special training classes as per RTE Act 2009 and ensured food security of children.
Terming Ms Sitharaman's budget as “disappointing”, the National Student Union of India, said students were expecting a waive off from education loan, serious concern over the pending scholarship and fellowship to the students. He asked what happened to the National Research Foundation which has been the budget headline since last two years. NSUI President Neeraj Kundan said that in her whole budget Finance Minister stressed on digital education and e-content but what she doesn't address is the basic problem of equipping the schools and colleges with laptops and computers. Another major problem is about the students who took education loan and were not placed, it is very difficult for such students to pay the EMI, NSUI demands to waive off three years EMI of such students, he said.
