Union Budget 2022 Today: School Education Budget Increases by Rs 9,000 crore

New Delhi: Union Budget 2022: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Budget 2022-23 on Tuesday, February 1. The education sector already had lots of expectations from this year’s budget, from increase in allocation to better digital infrastructure, the experts wished to see some changes in policies focusing on a longer term impact in the education sector. In the Union Budget 2022, the second budget after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, school education has been allocated Rs 63,449.37 crore, an increase of nearly Rs 9,000 crore over the current financial year.

Union Budget 2022 Updates: Education budget increases by over Rs 11,000 crore. In 2020, the budget allocated to the Department of School Education and Literacy was Rs 54,873.66 crore, which represented a drastic cut of Rs 5,000 crore from the previous budget of 2019. In Budget 2022, school education has seen an overall increase in general with more Rs 3,000 crore increase from the pre-pandemic times. The country’s biggest school education scheme, the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, has been allocated Rs 37,383.36, an increase of more than Rs 6,000 crores from Budget 2021. However, the allocated budget for SSA is less than 2019, when Rs 38,750.50 crore was allocated.

Meanwhile, the National Scheme for Incentive to Girls, a scholarship incentive scheme for girl children from Schedule Tribes and rural areas has been allocated no budget this year. The scheme had faced a cut of more than Rs 100 crore in Budget 2021. Also, Padhna Likhna Abhiyaan, an adult education scheme focussed on basic literacy, has not been allocated any funds for the next financial year. Last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic situations, the budget in the education sector was slashed by 6 per cent- Rs 93,224 crore in 2021-22 from Rs 99,311 crore in 2020-21.