The government expenditure in India on early childhood education (ECE) for children between the age of three years and six years is a mere 0.1% of the GDP, and the average spend per child of ₹8,297 per annum is at least a fourth of desired levels, according to a new study.
The research conducted jointly by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) and commissioned by Save The Children was released on Tuesday. It claims to be the first-ever attempt to estimate the cost of universalisation of ECE services in India.
It calculates that the Union government and State governments allocated 0.1% of the GDP in the financial year 2020-2021, which was equivalent to 0.39% of the country’s total budgetary outlay. Government expenditure on ECE as percentage of GDP in UK was 0.22%, USA 0.33%, Germany 0.49%, Finland 0.71, even though India had a much higher population of children in the age group of three to six years at 99 million, according to Census 2011.
