According to the Government of India press release on February 1, 2023, Union Minister for Education and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship Shri Dharmendra Pradhan has lauded the Union Budget 2023-24 as being inclusive, people-centric and growth-stimulating Budget. He said that this AmritKaal Budget includes everyone, empowers poor & middle class, reaches the last mile and brings cheer to all.
Expressing his gratitude to the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, he said that giving a boost to education, skill development, entrepreneurship, R&D, digital infrastructure, green growth and job creation, the Budget draws a meticulous blueprint for India at100 and lays a solid foundation for transforming India into a technology-driven knowledge-based economy.
Shri Dharmendra Pradhan highlighted that Ministry of Education has been allocated Rs 112899.47 crore. This is the highest allocation ever to the Education Ministry. The budgetary allocation witnessed the jump of 13% (over revised estimates) which is 13,018.34 cr from FY 2022-23, he added. The Department of School Education has been allocated Rs 68,804.85 crore and Department of Higher Education gets Rs 44,094.62 crore.
Highlights from Budget Speech relating to Education Ministry are mentioned below:
- To empower our youth and help the ‘Amrit Peedhi’ realize their dreams, we have formulated the National Education Policy, focused on skilling, adopted economic policies that facilitate job creation at scale, and have supported business opportunities.
- Teachers’ Training will be re-envisioned through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development, dipstick surveys, and ICT implementation. The District Institutes of Education and Training will be developed as vibrant institutes of excellence for this purpose.
- Setting up of a National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents for facilitating availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels, and device agnostic accessibility. States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries at Panchayat and ward level.
To build a culture of reading and to make up for pandemic-time learning loss, the National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust and other sources will be encouraged to provide and replenish non curricular titles in regional languages and English to these physical libraries. Collaboration with NGOs that work in literacy will also be a part of this initiative. To inculcate financial literacy, financial sector regulators and organizations will be encouraged to provide age-appropriate reading material to these libraries.
