School Education Budget 2021: Here are the Major changes in Five Schemes

While the nation battles the COVID-19 pandemic that has pushed back the progress in the education system by years, Union Budget 2021 for school education witnesses a sharp drop. The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, will receive Rs 54,873.66 crore for the upcoming financial year– the lowest budget allotted to it in two years.

As the students were largely affected by the outbreak of coronavirus. It was likely that the allocation to school education will be higher as that of the last years’.

Overall, the budget for the Education Ministry has been reduced by Rs 6,086.69 crores – from Rs 99,311 crores in 2020-21 financial year to Rs 93,224.31 crores in 2021-22.

The recently passed National Education Policy (NEP) had set the pace for revamping the education sector, however, the school education budget cut by close to Rs 5,000 crores is likely to create gap across the areas of education infrastructure, learning, and education financing. In the interim Budget for 2019-20, the government had allocated Rs 59,845 crores to the Department of School Education and Literacy.

Here are the five schemes that saw changes in the allocation of funds for the next year:

Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan

The Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, one of the nation’s biggest school education schemes, saw funds reduced to Rs 31,050.16 crores from 38,750.50 crores last year. Samagra Shiksha is an integrated scheme for school education extending from pre-school to Class 12 to ensure inclusive. And equitable quality education at all levels of school education. It subsumes the three Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

National Scheme For Incentive To Girls For Secondary Education

Funds for the National Scheme for Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education has been dropped by over 100 crores. This year, the scheme has been allocated Rs 1 crore as compared to Rs 110 crores last year. However, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 had proposed a gender inclusion fund to promote girls education.

Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan

Funds for the Kendriya Vidyalayas saw an increase as the KVs have been issued Rs 6,800 crores for the upcoming financial year as compared to Rs 5,516 crores last year.

Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti

The budget allocation to Navodaya Vidyalayas has been increased by Rs 500 crores. Last year, Rs 3,300 crores were allocated to Navodaya Vidyalayas while for this year. The funds have been raised to Rs 3,800 crores.

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National Programme Of Mid Day Meal In Schools

Mid-day meal scheme saw an increase of Rs 500 crores. As the total allocation has been raised to Rs 11,500 crores from Rs 11,000 last year.

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