As India's quality of schooling plummets, here's how Budget 2019 can help

Business Standard As India's quality of schooling plummets, here's how Budget 2019 can help

The school education system in India is facing a shortage of trained teachers and a lack of proper infrastructure

Interim Budget 2019: India stepped up its spending on school education by 9.35% from 2014-15 (Rs 45,722.41 crore) to 2018-19 (Rs 50,000 crore). But education’s share in the total union budget fell from 2.55% to 2.05% in this period, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of budgetary data.

On February 1, 2019, when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) presents its last budget before general elections, it will have to address a critical issue in India’s school education: Its quality compares poorly with many south Asian and BRICS nations even though India spends a higher percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education.

In rural India, almost half of grade V students cannot read a grade II text and more than 70% them cannot do division, said the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018. These numbers indicate a fall in standards over the last 10 years.

Why schooling needs special attention this budget The school education system in India is facing a shortage of trained teachers and a lack of proper infrastructure. Here are some factors that need to be addressed in the budget: 92,275 government schools at both elementary and secondary level have only one teacher to teach all the subjects, Satya Pal Singh, minister of state for human resource development told the Lok Sabha on January 1, 2019.

1 in every 4 schools in rural India does not have an electricity connection, as per ASER and almost the same number lacks a library. A computer is available only in 21.3% of rural schools.

250.53 million children in India are in the age group of 6-15 in 2017, as per government data, and in need of a good education.