Budget raises hope for girl child

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Keywords: Girl Child , Education

Despite the Government's long-term objective of raising the expenditure on education to 6 pc of GDP, it stayed less than 3 pc so far and may jump to more than 3% with this year's outlay.

The announcement of Rs 750 crores for the upgradation of ITIs is a welcome step towards vocational education that would help in the gainful employment of youth.

The addition of 410 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas would help in the retention of the girl child in the education stream and reduce the gender gap in educated pool.

To sustain industrial and service sector growth, additional IITs, central universities and Rs 100 crore grant of setting up National Knowledge Centres, Schools of Architecture and Planning, IIScs would help sustain industrial growth.

Sixteen central universities would help us achieve quality output to sustain and propel this growth.

However, despite a huge increase in budgetary allocation to the education sector, it seems that there's little emphasis on improving the quality of education in existing institutions.