The Lok Sabha has taken up the discussion on demands for grants related to the Ministry of Education. Initiating the discussion in the House, Tejasvi Surya of the BJP said the country witnessed significant improvement in the infrastructure and quality of education in the country in the last ten years. He said several provisions have been made in this year’s budget for the capacity building of youths and making them self-reliant. Mr Surya said the budget focuses on generating direct and indirect employment and skill training for four crore youth. He said the budget of the higher education department was only 26 thousand 750 crore rupees in 2013-14, which now increased by 71 per cent to over 47 thousand crore rupees.
Mohammad Jawed of Congress highlighted the vacant positions in schools and colleges. He said there are lots of vacant seats in schools and colleges that need to be filled. He said four lakh 80 thousand teacher positions in schools are vacant and more than 61 thousand in central universities are still unfilled. Pratima Mondal of Trinamool Congress alleged that the central government policies have failed to uplift the educational standards in the country. She said the budget also fails to prioritise skill development programmes.
