Will Budget 2022 heal India’s sagging education system?
India Today
While the global average of school closures was under 35 weeks, it was 73 weeks in India till the end of September 2021.
India is one of the countries where school closures due to the pandemic were the longest in the world. While the global average of school closures was under 35 weeks, it was 73 weeks in India till the end of September 2021, with the third wave forcing further closures. When children return to school after almost two years of no formal instruction, the learning deficits are expected to be much deeper.
In addition, many affordable smaller private schools have shut down and with migrants returning to their villages, the demand for public education is likely to have increased during the pandemic, says the Annual Status of Education Report 2021.
But while the pandemic has induced fresh demands from public education, the situation was grim even before it commenced.
All these underline that the need for a drastic improvement in public education also necessitates more expenditure from the government. However, instead of an increase, it has fallen in the last 10 years. From 11.4 per cent of the total government expenditure in 2011-12, spending on education has fallen to 10.4 per cent in 2020-21, according to the Economic Survey 2021. It has been below 11 per cent since 2014-15.
Education comes under the social sector and the fall in its expenditure is despite the rise in the proportion of social sector expenditure during the same period.
The expenditure on education is limited to below 3.5 per cent of India's GDP. In 2011-12, spending on education was 3.2 per cent of the GDP, which stood at 2.8 per cent in 2018-19.
In comparison, Brazil spends 6.3 per cent of its GDP on education, South Africa 5.9 per cent and the United Kingdom 5.4 per cent, while the global average is 4.2 per cent, according to the World Bank.