Moneycontrol Bureau
Education stocks like Career Point, Everonn Education, MT Educare, Educomp Solutions, Aptech and NIIT shot up 2-4 percent ahead of likely increase in education spending in Union Budget 2015-16.
Higher education plays a key role in the realisation of a country’s extraordinary potential and aspirations for economic and technological development. In a budgetary allocation there is always a pecking order, with higher education getting priority over primary education. The Budget 2015-16 should make an effort to represent two major challenges for India - the qualitative deficits in higher education and the need for major quantitative expansion, says Dr MR Jayaram, co-founder of ERA foundation, chairman of Gokula Education Foundation and first Chancellor of MS Ramaiah University of Applied Science.
The government should come forward to set up more modern academic institutes with offering of global courses. The Budget must have a provision of setting up universities and institutes to persuade talented young Indians to remain at home. This will meet the new and emerging needs of the economy, he adds.
Recognizing the prime minister’s emphasis on skill enhancement, the Budget 2015-16 should emphasize on tertiary education with its focus on entrepreneurship education, he says.
Jayaram says the Budget may have some provisions of offering cheaper loans (at comparatively lower interest rate) with liberal loan policies to girl students.
The aim of the Budget should be to improve the efficiency of research, development and innovation (RDI) funding at national and state level institutes so that the education system is more quality conscious, and forward looking.
Key announcements in last Budget
For school education
* Rs 28,635 crore for Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA) and Rs 4,966 crore for Rashtriya Madhyamic Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).
* Rs 500 crore provided for Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya New Teachers Training
* Rs 100 crore for setting up virtual classrooms as Communication Linked Interface for Cultivating Knowledge (CLICK) and online courses.
For Higher Education
* Rs 500 crore for setting up 5 more IITs in the Jammu, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
* Five IIMs in HP, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha and Rajasthan.
* Simplification of norms to facilitate education loans for higher studies.
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