Public education being one of the largest and most important sectors for the inclusive growth of the country, access to quality school education is still a high critical issue that requires serious attention.
A joint study by Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and CRY – Child Rights and You analyses the school education budgets for six states, bringing to fore that even though the states have increased funding for school education in the 14th FC (Finance Commission) period, they have not fully utilised their budgets to change the composition of their school education spending.
This has led to a crunch in allocation of resources including adequate number of professionally qualified teachers and required infrastructure among others – factors likely to hamper children’s access to quality education.
With over 60 per cent of children in India depending on public schools for their elementary and secondary education, public sector education takes centre stage for both State and Union governments.
The CBGA-CRY study named ‘Budgeting for School Education: What has Changed and What Has Not’ is carried out for six states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu; by studying the Detailed Demands for Grants of state budgets for 2014-15 to 2017-18.
“To ensure better school environment and quality learning outcomes, adequate public spending is vital.”
“There is a dire need to step up public investment for school education. With scarcity of basic resources of education like teachers and infrastructure, the governments at Centre and the States should come together to considerably increase and sustain school education funds longer than usual to transform the current public education system,” said Priti Mahara, Director, Policy research and Advocacy at CRY – Child Rights and You.
“Ensuring quality education is invariably related to a lot of factors. Though increased allocation of funds and better quality of spending does not solely or directly ensure quality education, it surely can address the issue by creating a more conducive environment,” she added.