A shot in the arm for education sector

"Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a record of Rs 1,12,899 crore as expenditure on the education sector in the union budget 2023-2024. With the flagship programme named Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan being emphasised this year, the pre-primary to higher secondary level schools of urban and rural regions of the nation would definitely get benefitted. Rs. 8621 crore hikes in the budget for education would provide the schools with better infrastructure and staff recruitment. This increased hike will encourage the students to participate in several innovative competitions and activities. Funds allocated to research alone will help them come up with interesting projects to solve global problems. Emphasis on Artificial Intelligence is also commendable. With loads of hope, let this budget empower the education sector to create many more global leaders with Indian value systems," said Dr T Lalitha Kumari, Principal, Sister Nivedita School.

"The government's enhanced focus on increasing education access in rural India in this year's Union Budget is a welcome move and this will have a positive impact on the country's literacy rate. It is very appreciable that teachers' training has been given prominence in the teaching field, I am looking forward to witnessing its effective implementation in the year. Apart from this, the announcement of setting up the National Digital Library will encourage our youth from diverse contexts to learn in a comprehensive manner," said Ahmed Khan, an educationist.

"This year's budget in the educational sector has brought new hope, as this year's Budget stretch was in regional languages that will help to improve their understanding of culture and regional concepts. Simultaneously, its initiatives to ensure age-appropriate reading material will encourage people to resume studies that they abandoned due to societal factors," said Shiva Kumar, an educationist.

Shekhar Rao, another educationist said that this year's budget allocation in education has given new hope in improving digital education but I felt that they were no strategic allocation given for the infrastructure development of government educational schools and colleges where many are in depleted condition."