Allocation for budget by the Education Ministry in 2023 increased by a marginal 8 percent from INR 1.12 lakh crore as opposed to 1.04 lakh crore in 2022-23. Of the same, the Department of School Education is projected acquire INR 67,804 crore and Department of Higher Education INR 44,094 crore.

More again, the Ministry’s biggest school education scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, has been allocatedalmost the same amount as last year — INR 37,453 crore compared to INR 37,383 crore (budget estimate) in 2022-23. This is when students and teachers are still trying to recover the learning losses incurred during the pandemic.

The budget gives cheer to the teaching community as they will be going through training of innovative teaching methods, curriculum transformation, continuous professional development, and the implementation of ICT. The establishment of an amount of 30 Skill India International Centers, offering cutting-edge programs in fields such as coding, AI, IOT, mechatronics, drones, and the enhancement of various soft skills, as announced in this budget, is a phenomenal initiative. The budget in total is a positive step towards the growth and advancement of vocational education within the education sector.

“The plan of establishment of various medical colleges number and nursing colleges number is not really required at present. There are lot of medical and nursing colleges at the moment and instead of expending money there, we should enrich and empower the existing medical colleges. There should be major vacancy in government sectors for doctors and nurses. We require good teachers in already established medical colleges to get better doctors. Just spending money on buildings of medical colleges and not hiring professional is a wasteful activity," says Rohan Krishan, President, FAIMA.