With a whopping budget allocation of `1.12 lakh crore for education, the Union Budget 2023 on Wednesday granted the highest allocation ever to the Education Ministry with certain new intakes on the platter like developing three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence (AI) in top educational institutions and 100 labs in engineering institutions for developing applications using 5G services.
Along with the increased expenditure on education for FY23-24, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also proposed some key reforms and initiatives to boost the quality of education at all levels and support upskilling of youth. The budget allocation for the Ministry of Education has been increased by a marginal 8 per cent from `1.12 lakh crore as opposed to 1.04 lakh crore in 2022-23. Of this, the Department of School Education is expected to get `68,804 crore and Department of Higher Education `44,094 crore.
Expressing his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that giving a boost to education, skill development, entrepreneurship and digital infrastructure, green growth and job creation, the Budget draws a meticulous blueprint for India at100 and lays a solid foundation for transforming India into a technology-driven knowledge-based economy.
Some of the key projects proposed include the coming up of 157 new nursing colleges in co-location with existing 157 medical colleges, recruitment of 38,800 teachers and support staff for Eklavya Model Residential Schools, and setting up a National Digital Library for to facilitate the availability of quality books among students.
Sitharaman further proposed to set up ICMR labs for research by public and private medical faculties, and new dedicated multidisciplinary courses. 30 new Skill India centres across states, and PM Kaushal Vikash Yojana 4.0 for the skill development of youth with new age courses for industry like Coding, AI, Robotics, Mechatronics, 3D Printing, and others have also been proposed in the Budget
2023. The Centre also announced that teachers training will be re-envisioned through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development dipstick survey and ICT implementation.
“Lab grown diamonds is a technology and innovation driven, energy driven sector with high employment potential. To encourage indigenous production of such diamonds, a research grant will be provided to one of the IITs for five years,” she said.