Ministry of Education gets Rs 1.20 lakh crore in Budget, 7% less than last year

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 announced Rs 1. 20 lakh crore as expenditure on education in the Interim Budget 2024-25.

This is Rs 9,091 crore less than the revised estimate for 2023-24 and translates to a nearly 7.26 percent decline compared with the previous revised estimates of Rs 1,29,718 crore.

Allocation for school education has increased by a meagre 0.7 percent from Rs 72,473 crore (revised estimate) in 2023-24 to Rs 73,008 crore (budget estimates) in 2024-25.

Further, higher education has received Rs 47,619 crore in 2024-25, a decline of 18 percent from Rs 57,244 crore (revised estimates) in 2023-24.

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"Adequate funding is essential for the development of robust educational infrastructure, teacher training programs, and the implementation of innovative teaching methods. A reduced budget could lead to a shortage of resources, limiting schools' ability to provide updated learning materials and technology," Dr Jayanthi Ranjan, Dean of Academic Affairs at Sharda University told Moneycontrol.

He also said that decreased funding may disproportionately affect marginalized communities, widening educational disparities.

Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the Union government’s flagship programme for pre-primary to higher secondary level schools, has been allocated Rs 37,500 crore, an increase of 12.76 percent against Rs 33,000 (revised estimates) in 2023-24.

To be sure, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan subsumes the three schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

The Union government-owned public technical institutes — The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) received Rs 10,324 crore (budget estimates) for FY25 against Rs 10,384 crore (RE) in FY24.

Allocation to the University Grants Commission (UGC) stands at Rs 2,500 crore allocated in Budget 2024. Last year, the UGC was allotted Rs 6,409 crore (revised estimates).