Lok Sabha has approved demands for grants from the Ministry of Education. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today said budgetary allocation for education has increased over the years, as it is only by providing quality education that India will achieve the target of a 30 trillion dollar economy by 2047. Mr. Pradhan was replying to the discussion on demands for grants of the Education Ministry in the House. He elaborated that 4 lakh 30 thousand crore rupees were being spent on education in 2013-14, which has now increased to 9 lakh 19 thousand crore today. Mr. Pradhan also informed me that there has been a 78 per cent increase in budgetary allocation for higher education since 2013-14.
He said his ministry has given a lot of thought to bringing education that is accessible, equitable, affordable, and qualitative, along with accountability. He said the number of higher education institutions, including IIMS and IITs, has increased. He added that while there were 760 universities in the country in 2014-15, the number has increased to one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight. The Education Minister highlighted that the Narendra Modi government launched the PM JANMAN scheme to provide quality education to primitive tribes in the nation. Mr. Pradhan also informed us that the government is committed to tribal education. He said that to enable access to education for the tribal, 500 hostels will be built in line with the PM Jan Man scheme, out of which the construction work of a hundred 19 hostels has started. He said the Centre is emphasizing developing and promoting Indian Sign Language.
The Education Minister pointed out that for the first time, there is a woman Vice-Chancellor in Aligarh Muslim University. He said the number of female teachers in schools has also increased.
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.
Sougata Roy of TMC said the standard of higher education must be improved to keep the best students from going abroad. He cited that 8 lakh, 96 thousand Indian students went abroad for higher studies last year. He said this brain drain ought to be stopped.
Hanuman Beniwal of RLP said the government should take stern measures to put an end to the coaching mafia. He raised concern over incidents of paper leaks in the nation.
Asaduddin Owaisi of AIMIM, Malvinder Singh Kang of AAP, BJP’s Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, Priya Saroj of the Samajwadi Party, Sambit Patra of the BJP, DMK’s Kanimozhi were among those who participated in the discussion.
Later, Lok Sabha took up matters of public importance, after which it was adjourned for the day.
