The Budget justifiably ascribes an enhanced allocation to education as it strives to fulfil the vision of NEP-2020 and Digital India Mission
Education is a key contributor to the economic growth and prosperity of any country. Skilled, innovative and specialised human capital, coupled with technological innovations, propels the economy by causing higher employment generation and increased productivity. The 2022 Budget had education as a prime focus area and was marked by an allocation of a record Rs 1,04,278 crore to education for 2022-23, with a jump of 11.86 per cent compared to the allocation of Rs 93,224 crore in 2021-22. This progressive Budget, with a digital push, has been widely lauded by the educationists as it endeavours to fulfil the vision of National Education Policy (NEP-2020) and Digital India Mission by strengthening online education and skilling the youth. With a strong digital education network, inclusivity as well as accessibility of quality education throughout the country can be ensured.
Digital education, with the integration of ever-evolving technology with powerful e-content materials has made the teaching learning very innovative, motivating, interactive and attractive. In the 21st century, where our life and work activities are dominated by digitisation, digital education methodologies shall enable need-based acquisition of cognitive skills to learners. Their knowledge and skills will increase with variety of interesting e-materials.
Like other countries, India has faced disruption in traditional classroom teachings due to the closure of educational institutions during the last two years as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To minimise offline teaching loss and to maintain regular academic calendar, schools and higher educational institutions of the country shifted to the online mode of teaching, learning and evaluation marked by extensive use of online platforms and e-contents. All stakeholders in education sector realised the potentials of e-learning during the pandemic and got accustomed with it.
A robust digital infrastructure across the country, coupled with the availability of variety of online programmes to learners, will substantially contribute to achieving 50 per cent GER in higher education by 2035 as envisaged in NEP-2020. The Budget lays major emphasis on digital learning and proposes for development of e-contents for schoolchildren and expansion of ‘one class one TV channel’ programme to 200 TV channels in regional languages under the PM e-vidya scheme. This will ensure delivery of high-quality teaching materials to schoolchildren coming from all sections, more especially those from Government schools, rural areas and deprived sections where proper internet connectivity is still an issue.
Education in regional languages will enhance literacy in rural India that constitutes nearly 65 per cent of the total population. In the long run, it will lead to a technology empowered transformation in socioeconomic scenario of the country. The Budget focuses on creating an education ecosystem that is employment-centric with the launch of a digital skilling platform DESH-Stack e-portal for skilling, upskilling and reskilling of youth through online training. It is a welcome move to fulfil the demands of employment sectors.
Talent requirements of the industry and other sectors can only be bridged by skilling the youth in respective areas. The move of aligning National Skill Qualification Framework with the demand of industries will enthuse youth to regularly upskill themselves and to keep them always skilling and relevant as professionals matching the demands of the jobs in the changing times. Further, according to the Budget, to promote skill in youth, ITIs will be entrusted to take up new skilling courses to promote skills as well as critical thinking.
Aligning with the Digital India Mission to transform the nation into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, the Budget proposes to setup a Digital University, which will be a Central university in a digital mode to provide world-class quality education to students from across the country. The university will come up with hub and spoke model where from a centralised ‘hub’ online education materials can be accessed from different location ‘spokes’ of the country. The best universities of the country will collaborate with the digital university. Students from remote areas will be in a position to get online access to quality education in different Indian languages sitting at their doorstep.
In this digital era, when education is not confined to only classrooms and textbooks, digital learning with powerful e-contents in Indian languages will boost up enrolment in school and higher education. It will democratise education by extending its reach up to all strata of the society, bridging the prevailing gaps and paving the way towards building a vibrant knowledge economy. The Budget proposals for skilling the youth and giving digital push to education are perfectly aligned with the vision of NEP-2020 and United Nations SDGs to make available high-quality education to all.
(The writer is the Vice-Chancellor, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar. The views expressed are personal.)