Keeping the poll promise, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the Budget on Friday said National Education Policy (NEP) would be replaced with a new State Education Policy. He also announced extension of the programme of providing eggs, groundnut chikki and banana to students studying in classes IX and X of government and aided schools along with midday meals, covering 60 lakh students, at a total cost of ₹280 crore.
Allocation comes down
However, compared to the previous Budget, ₹373 crore (1%) of grant has been cut for education sector. Chief Minister has allocated ₹37,857 crore (11% of the total Budget) in this Budget, which was ₹37,960 crore (12%) in the previous one presented by Basavarj Bommai.
In his Budget speech, Mr. Siddaramaiah also referred to the controversial textbook revision and said, “Education should impart the values of fraternity, harmony and coexistence in children. The previous government had introduced certain concepts in the textbooks which were antithetical to these value systems. Measures will be taken in the current year to drop such content from the textbooks.”
On the need to scrap NEP, he said, “Uniform Education System does not suit a nation like India which has diverse religions, languages and cultures. A new education policy will be formulated keeping in mind the local social, cultural and economic milieu of the State. The new policy will elevate the higher education standards in the state to the global level and empower our youth to compete globally and gain meaningful employment opportunities.”
Bridging language gap
Among initiatives in Higher Education, the Budget proposes re-starting conversional English classes in all government higher education institutions in collaboration with the British Council and Regional Institute of English. To eliminate language barriers in pursuing higher education and to enable university students to write exams in Kannada, the government will translate widely used reference books and syllabi into Kannada.
