TS budget: Priority to education is falling down by every year

A huge drop was seen in the allocation for education in the vote-on-account budget on Friday, continuing in a trend that is seen in recent years, despite the government’s promise to provide free education “from KG to PG”. In 2014-15, the government had allocated 10.88 per cent of the state budget to education. The allocation declined gradually to 9.69 per cent, 8.23 per cent, 8.49 per cent, and 7.61 per cent in financial years 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 respectively. On Friday, the allocation to education was slashed to 6.71 per cent for the fiscal 2019-20.

In absolute terms, the education has been allocated Rs 12.220.75 crore for fiscal 2019-20 compared to  Rs 13,278 crore last year. This is the lowest amount of money allocated to education among all southern states.

On the Education Development Index, Telangana ranks 28, just ahead of Bihar. Many southern states are far ahead in their allocation to education. In their 2018-19 budgets, Tamil Nadu allotted Rs 27,205 crore for education, Andhra Pradesh Rs 24,185 crore, and Karnataka and Kerala allotted Rs 22,350 and Rs 20,889 crore respectively, against Telangana’s Rs 13,278 crore.

Mr Nagati Narayana, president, Telangana Parents Association, said, “More than 50 per cent of school students are not attaining the minimum levels of learning. Only three government degree colleges have obtained the ‘A’ grade of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council.” He said that all levels of educational institutions, from kindergarten to post-graduate level are suffering from a faculty and staff shortage.

“The Right to Education Act 2009 is still a non-starter. No funds have been released even for a piece of chalk for this academic year. This sorrowful state of affairs is due to lack of sufficient funds which needs to be addressed immediately,” Mr Narayana said.

He estimates that a minimum of Rs 30,000 crore should be allotted to the education sector. The Telangana Parents and Teachers Association criticised the Telangana government for reducing the education budget to 6.7 per cent. They said that the amount released is not at all sufficient for the development of government schools.

Mr.Chava Ravi from the United Teachers Federation mentioned, “It’s just not the 500 residential schools that need attention. There are around 22,000 other schools such as zilla and mandal parishad schools, government run schools and there are many institutions including universities that need financial support.”

Funds are required for upgrading English taught in government schools, arranging pre-school cla-sses in primary schools, providing computer education and increasing teaching staff in schools, colleges and universities.

The B.G. Kher Committee constituted in 1954 had recommended that the Centre should allot 10 per cent of its budget to education and states should allot 20 per cent to fulfil the educational needs of the country.