Education Budget 2023: National Digital Libraries, 157 Nursing College, Integrated Online Training Programme – Key Takeaways

Union Budget 2023 For Education: Under mission Karma Yogi, centres, states and the union territories are implementing capacity-building plans for civil servants.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Budget 2023 in the new parliament today, February 1, 2023. The Union Budget, Ms Sitharaman’s fifth since 2019, is the government’s financial accounts in a financial year. After nearly three years of massive disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s education sector is looking forward to the new normal, in which constant upskilling and increasing digitalisation will be the new form.

According to the National Education Policy 2020 recommendations, the education budget should ideally be 6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product(GDP). That figure, however, was never reached. Today, all eyes are on the Education sector, which was allocated a record Rs 1,04,277.72 crore for the 2022-23 financial year. This includes Rs 63,449.37 crore to the Department of School Education and Literacy and Rs 40,828.35 crore to the Department of Higher Education. The revised estimates of this allocation will also be revealed today. One of the biggest takeaways from Budget 2023 is that 157 nursing colleges that will be established in the core locations.

The education budget for 2023-24 is an increase of Rs 13,018 crore from the current fiscal, with Rs 38,953 being the budget estimate for the core National Education Mission. However, estimated expenditure on education by the Centre would be 2.5 pc of total allocations, down from 2.6 pc in 2021-22.

In the budget allocation for school education, there has been an overall increase of Rs 9752.07 crore (16.51 pc) and for higher education, an amount of Rs 44,094.62 crore has been made as compared to Rs 40,828.35 crore in RE 2022-23, an increase of 8 per cent.

All You Need to Know About Previous Budget

Financial Year 2019- 2020 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-23
Total Budget 94,853. 64 99,300 93, 224.31 104,277.72
Department of Higher Education 38317.01 39,466.52 38,350.65 40,828.35

Union Budget 2023 Education Sector: Check Key Takeaways Here

Dedicated multidisciplinary courses for medical devices will be supported in existing institutions to ensure the availability of skilled manpower for futuristic medical technologies and research.
A National Digital Library for children and adolescents will be set up for facilitating the availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels and device-agnostic accessibility
National Book Trust and Children’s Book Trust will provide books in local languages and English to the physical libraries.
In the next three years, Centre will recruit a total of 38,800 teachers and support staff for the 740 Ekalavya schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students. The Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) have had their budget increase by a significant Rs 581.96 crore, from Rs 1418.04 crore in 201-22 to Rs 2,000 crores for the 2022-23 financial year. The scheme will provide support to residential schools run for tribal students.
To build a culture of reading and to make up for pandemic time learning loss, the National Book Trust, the Children’s Book Trust, and other sources will be encouraged to provide and books and other material in regional languages, and in English to these physical libraries.
Integrated online training programme for civil servants and government employees to upgrade skills.
Select facilities at ICMR labs will be made available for research to outsiders. A new programme to promote research and innovation in pharmaceuticals will be introduced. 157 new nursing colleges will be established in co-location with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014.
Under mission Karma Yogi, centres, states and the union territories are implementing capacity-building plans for civil servants. The government has also launched an integrated online training platform to provide continuous learning opportunities for lakhs of government employees to upgrade their skills and facilitate people centric approach.
Teachers’ training will be reenvisioned through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development dipstick survey, and iCT implementation. The district institute of education and training will be developed as vibrant institute of excellence for this purpose.
100 labs will be set up in engineering institutions with various authorities, regulators, banks, and other businesses for developing applications using 5G services. To realise the new range of opportunities, business models, and employment potential, the labs will cover, among others, applications such as smart classrooms, precision farming, intelligent transport systems, and healthcare applications.
PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 will be launched.
To skill the youth for international opportunities, 30 Skill India International Centres will be set up across different States.
To provide support to 47 lakh youths in 3 years, a Direct Benefit Transfer under a pan India national apprenticeship scheme will be rolled out.
To realise the vision of ‘Make AI in India’ and ‘Make AI Work for India’ three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence will be set up in top educational institutions.
Govt to provide R&D grant to one of the IITs to encourage indigenous production of lab-grown diamonds in a bid to reduce imports.