Budget 2023 l More outlay for education unrealistic, given pressure on economy: Educationist Meeta Sengupta

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday presented the Union Budget for 2023-24 (Apr-Mar) in the Lok Sabha. Team FPJ spoke to industry experts from various fields. To gauge the reaction in the field of Education, we spoke with Meeta Sengupta who is Author, educationist and founder of the Centre for Education Strategy- a Delhi-based think tank. Here's what she had to say.

Union Budget 2023-24 looked at education as a tool and not the end game. The budget interpreted education as a foundation for health, employment, and developing excellence which marked a striking change in approach to the sector. Despite the fact that this line of thought might not be welcome by the idealists of the sector, it remains crucial for the coming decade.

Though pouring funds in education was a welcome move, one must observe that the status quo is maintained through a vast portion of the budget as figures keep mapping to the rising inflation. It would have only been unrealistic for one to hold great expectations from the education budget for the coming financial year given the other pursued pressures on our economy at the moment.

Not many concrete figures were revealed in the Finance Minister’s budget speech, which laid an unprecedented emphasis on teacher training playing into the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP). Mentioning Centres of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence (AI), an existing initiative, was a strong signal to top institutions to take advantage of these facilities. International education ventures failed to find sufficient representation through the overall financial statement as one awaits the foreign varsities to be let into the nation.

Indian health expertise was demonstrated in the budget as a pilot project. It was refreshing to see that the intersection of health and education received enough attention with the Centre’s plan to launch 157 new nursing colleges co-located with the existing medical institutes. This cluster approach toward learning has always worked well for the nation. Indian doctors and nurses have been a highly demanded workforce abroad, in both the first world and the emerging nations while acting as huge sources of linkages for our nation, which in itself holds immense potential to turn into a global health hub.