Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan said this year, the budget has provided for the implementation of the Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Yojana, which will see textbooks digitised for all 22 scheduled languages, as well as English. Mr Pradhan said, in the National Education Policy, no language has been imposed. NEP is meant for mother tongue-based education. He said that multilingualism is the need of the moment.
Replying to a discussion on the working of the Ministry of Education in the Rajya Sabha today, Mr Dharmendra Pradhan has said that the budgetary allocations to the education sector are constantly being increased year by year since the Narendra Modi government took over in 2014. The Minister said that over one lakh 28 thousand crore rupees have been allocated to education in the Union Budget this year which is 6.22 percent more than the previous year. He said that the budgetary allocation to school education has also been raised from over 52 thousand 700 crore rupees in 2013-14 to 78 thousand 572 crore rupees in 2025-26. Mr Pradhan said the spending on Higher Education in 2013-14 was only 26 thousand 750 crore rupees which has now gone up to over 50 thousand crore rupees. He said this reflects the government’s commitment towards education. Mr Pradhan said that the Women and Child Development Ministry, Health Ministry and Education Ministry are collaborating to ensure holistic early childhood education, nutrition and development. He also informed that internet broadband will be installed in all secondary schools and this work has been given to BharatNet. Mr Pradhan added that 500 crore rupees has been allocated this time for AI in Education. The Minister said the government has decided to open 50 thousand Atal Tinkering Labs in the country in the coming five years.
Earlier, initiating the discussion, Digvijay Singh of Congress talked about skilling and training of teachers. He said, there is a delay in giving Junior Research Fellowship to research students in Universities. Mr Singh also alleged that the Central government is taking GST from public Universities which was never the case earlier. Ghanshyam Tiwari of BJP said that the central government has taken several steps to transform the educational system of the country. He said, 41 thousand crore rupees had been allocated for samagra shiksha abhiyan. Mr Tiwari said, more than 14 thousand 500 schools are being modernised. Ritabrata Banerjee of TMC said that Union expenditure on education in the budget has been 0.37 per cent of the GDP which should be increased. He also talked about the issue of unemployment.
Praful Patel of NCP emphasized the need to bring a change in the educational system in the country as par with international standards. He noted that schools in rural areas have very few students. Mr Patel also suggested that the education system in India should be bolstered in such a way that the students should not go to foreign countries for higher education.
H D Devegowda of JD (S), Sanjay Jha of JD(U), Masthan Rao Yadav Beedha of TDP, Jhon Brittas of CPI(M), Priyanka Chaturvedi of SS(UBT), Ramji of BSP, Fauzia Khan of NCP(SCP), Niranjan Bishi of BJD participated in the discussion among others. After the reply of the Minister, the Upper House was adjourned for the day.
