Budget 2023: Nirmala Sitharaman announces major initiatives for India's education sector

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2023 today, February 1, 2023.

This year's budget is Modi 2.0 government's last full budget before India goes into general elections in 2024.

Like every year, the Centre introduced a bunch of initiatives for the education sector.

Here are some of the major highlights for the education sector in the Union Budget 2023:

• Sitharaman announced the centre's plans to set up 157 new nursing colleges in co-locations close to the existing 157 medical colleges developed since 2014. Innovation and Research in the pharmaceutical industry will be taken up through a 'centre of excellence'

• Centre plans to employ 38,800 teachers and support the staff of the existing 740 model residential schools, which will serve 3.5 lakh tribal students.

• Teachers' training will be reformed through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development, dipstick surveys, and ICT implementation. The District Institute of Educational Training will be developed as a vibrant Institute Of Excellence for the same.

• National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents will be set up for facilitating the availability of quality books across languages, geographies, genres, and levels, and devise agnostic accessibility. States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and block levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library Resources.

• To facilitate the idea of 'Make AI in India' and 'Make AI Work for India', three Centres of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence will be set up in top educational institutions. Leading industry players will partner in conducting multi-disciplinary research, and develop cutting-edge applications and scalable problem solutions in the areas of agriculture, health, and sustainable cities. 

• IITs will receive a research grant for the indigenous production of lab-grown diamonds. A five-year research grant will be awarded to one of the IITs to encourage indigenous production of such diamonds, according to the Minister. A total of 100 labs will be established in engineering institutions in collaboration with various authorities, regulators, banks, and other businesses to develop applications utilising 5G services.

• Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna 4.0 will be launched to skill lakhs of youths within the next three years. The scheme will also cover new-age courses for industry 4.0 like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones, and other soft skills.