Budget and Education

What should be the priority areas in education in budget 2012-13 ? We find out from a crosssection of academics.

Parvin Sinclair, Director, NCERT

Primary and secondary education needs fund allocation, with the focus on the last child getting an opportunity to study at least till Class X. Every sector needs more funds. We, at NCERT, wish to do much more in school education and require funds for these activities too. Education is on the concurrent list, which means that the school sector not only requires central government funding, but each state government has to agree to policies and fund them too.

AS Narang, Professor, School of Social Sciences, Ignou

Amajor portion of present grants to universities goes in for salaries and maintenance. Infrastructure remains a low priority. The need is not only to provide adequate allocations, but of clear earmarking of funds for infrastructure, research facilities and R&D . Since states are not contributing to higher education, the Centre should introduce schemes of grants to states, to improve the quality of universities and also to encourage states to contribute likewise. Funds also need to be earmarked for filling a large number of vacant positions. Quality research in social sciences is another area that needs attention. Also, budgetary allocation for improvement of overall infrastructure and facilities for research must be given priority.

Dinesh Singh, VC, Delhi University (DU)

The scope for innovations in technology, research facilities, experiments and new breakthroughs in science will make higher education substantial and productive. This should be a focus area for funding. More innovations, introduction of new degree programmes and activities for students in undergraduate disciplines must be the priority areas. The budget should focus on allocating more funds for improving soft-skills and also invest in the vocational education sector.

M Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur

For the last five budgets, higher education has been given prominence. It has received special attention in order to sustain and provide sufficient support for economic growth. This trend is likely to continue. At present, technical education has two components - large support base like the universities of national importance (IITs, etc), and state-level institutions. While the central universities get sufficient attention, statelevel universities suffer from low budget allocation and improper recognition, which should be focussed on.

SS Handa, Professor, department of computer science, faculty of engineering and technology, Manav Rachna International University

The core allocation of funds for this year's budget must cover academic research areas like biodiversity, pollution control and sustainable development.

Around 37% of our GDP comes from MSMEs. Hence, the government should extend funding support in research activities in these units.

Major fund allocation should be made for development in IT systems to make progress in manufacturing, business development and service sectors from micro to large-scale .

To develop green technology, the government should allocate funds for setting up small R&D centres, which will transfer knowledge to various sectors.