Education: Union budget gives no incentive to girls, doesn't mention Gender Inclusion Fund

Counterview Desk
The Union Budget 2022-23 has failed to respond to the educational crisis induced by the Covid-19 pandemic, Right to Education (RTE) Forum has said, noting, “It is particularly disappointing to see the focus on digital learning and proposing the expansion of e-VIDYA instead of concentrating on re-opening of schools and strengthening government school system in the budget.”
“Underfunding of the Public Education System will adversely impact the education of the disadvantaged sections of society further aggravating the inequality factor in the education sector”, it adds reacting the budget proposals on education.

Text:

Union Budget 2022-23 comes as a disappointment. While the Finance Minister acknowledges the traumatic impact of the pandemic, she has failed to acknowledge the urgent need to reopen schools and make them ready to respond to the COVID context.
Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) 2021 shows an 8.1% drop in enrolment in private schools with massive migration into the government system. While even the Economic Survey has recommended equipping government schools to handle this demographic shift, this has not seen action. While research suggests that only 8% of rural children were found to be studying regularly online during the pandemic, the Ministry’s decision to double down on a digital solution to address learning loss through supplementary teaching is hard to understand.
UNICEF report suggests that 42% of children between 6-13 years reported not using any type of remote learning during school closures. However the Finance Minister in her speech, while acknowledging the learning loss, mentioned that e-VIDYA programme will be expanded to 200 channels.
With more focus on digital learning, with no real allocations on expansion of digital infrastructure implies that the government is thinking of private investments and public private partnership (PPP) to push digital education. We must understand that the increased focus on Digital Education and no concrete roadmap to strengthen the public education system and formal schooling will hamper the goal of universalisation of education badly.
The Finance Minister in her speech failed to acknowledge the urgent need to reopen schools, where 80% of children aged 14-18 years reported lower levels of learning than when physically at school. Underfunding of the public education system will adversely impact the education of the disadvantaged sections of society further aggravating the inequality factor in the education sector.
While there has been a marginal increase of Rs 6,333 crore in allocation on Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (Rs 37,383 crore in 2022-23 over Rs 31,050 crore in 2021-22), it is yet to return to the pre-pandemic level of Rs 38,860 crore (2020-21 BE) which was already much lower than the required amount.
Allocations to the midday meal (MDM) have also shrunk this year, despite the policy commitment made to provide breakfast in schools and health issues of children during the pandemic. In the newly named scheme, Pradhanmantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM-POSHAN) it is only Rs 10,233.75 crore, even lower than the Rs 11,500 crores (2020-21 BE) while MDM was already facing acute crunch for a long.

The budget has yet again failed to provide an investment of 6% of GDP on education, as reiterated by NEP

The Covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted the education of children from marginalized communities, especially the girls, and in such a situation the National Scheme for Incentive to Girls has been allocated no budget this year. The Gender Inclusion Fund as promised in the New Education Policy (NEP) receives no mention. At the same time, the much hoped for increase in scholarship schemes for Dalits and Adivasis has also not materialized.
Overall, the budget has yet again failed to provide an investment of 6% of GDP on education, as reiterated by the NEP 2020. Budget must have given a roadmap to strengthen the public education system and ensure ground implementation of the right to free and compulsory education (RTE compliance is still at 25.5% at national level as per recent U Dise Data) as well as its extension from pre-primary to higher secondary.
Instead, in the budget, government should have:

proposed adequate investment in ensuring safe school operations and re-opening of schools; on the contrary, the outcome budget sets a target of only 123 new schools being opened this year and 8,500 schools having new classrooms built next year.
proposed plan for the expansion and strengthening of the public school system to ensure the implementation of the RTE Act 2009 and extend it to all levels of schooling to achieve the goals of universalization till higher secondary.
proposed to fill more than 11 lakh vacancies of teachers (11,09, 486 as per U DISE 2019-20) in schools and strengthen decentralised structures for teacher development.
massively ramped up in-person special training classes as per RTE Act 2009; the current target of only covering 11 lakh elementary school children and 2 lakhs of children aged 16-19 through the NIOS is inadequate given estimates of a high spike in child labour in the preceding year.
ensured targeted support for learners who are at risk of not returning to school, especially, Dalits, Adivasis, persons with disabilities, girls and those living in poverty.
guaranteed food security of children by extending the entitlement to secondary grades and including breakfast in line with the provisions of NEP, 2020
proposed a comprehensive/umbrella plan to support education and protection of children who lost their parents during the pandemic.

The RTE Forum feels that the budget is nowhere close to addressing the needs of the lost generation of children affected by two years of schooling. In so doing, it risks squandering India’s demographic dividend by failing to address the requirements of India’s greatest wealth -- its children.

Comments

'Halt Covid-19 vaccination drive': Indian doctors join campaign across 36 nations

By Rosamma Thomas* A group of Spanish doctors first got together to call for a halt to the Covid-19 vaccinations, and doctors from other countries too later joined them – there are now over 12,000 doctors from India, Portugal, Canada, Hungary, South Africa, Israel and a host of other nations who have issued a call to halt vaccinations. On September 10, a group of Indian doctors came together to address the press over a webinar to explain why they thought the vaccination drive should end forthwith. Dr Amitav Banerjee, who after a career as an epidemiologist in the Indian Army now teaches at a private medical college in Pune, said there was no longer a medical emergency. Children are at low risk of infection, and there is good reason to halt vaccination and conduct proper research, given the high number of adverse events. There is a sudden and poorly explained spike in the number of young and healthy people dying. While it may be impossible to attribute deaths entirely to the vaccinatio

Did Mother Teresa trivialise poverty? 'You are suffering, that means Jesus is kissing you'

By Harsh Thakor* The world commemorated the 25th death anniversary of Mother Teresa on September 5. Whatever her flaws, she rendered service to humanity in regions almost untranscended, resembling the relentless spirit of the waves of an ocean. Irrespective of community or religion, she offered her service. Even those not drawn by sainthood revere the role of Mother Teresa. For 68 years, she had worked selflessly and tirelessly in India and elsewhere in the world, taught the destitute, healed the sick, fed and clothed the poor, cared for abandoned children, housed lepers and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS and offered dignity in death to desolate persons abandoned by family and society. Mother Teresa was born in Skopje in 1910 to an Albanian family as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu. She became wedded to religious vows at an early age and moved to India to join the missionary work of the Catholic Church. Heartshaken by the misery faced by the Indian masses, in 1950 she set up her own

Tracing roots of Hindutva Zionism: cannon fodder for 'warped' nationalist pretensions

By Shamsul Islam* Those who believe in a world free of hegemonic ethno-nationalism, racism, religious bigotry and hatred have rightly taken note of Zionism and its ally Christian Zionism, major perpetrators of ethnic cleansing of ‘Others’. However, the civilized world with its core belief in multi-culturalism and peaceful co-existence is oblivious to a no less dangerous threat to the present human civilization: the Hindutva Zionism. As the term reads it is part of the Hindutva world-view which stands for an exclusive Hindu India minus Muslims and Christians. The other religions like Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism will have no independent status but treated as part of Hinduism. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS; National Volunteer Organization) is the most prominent flag-bearer of the Hindutva politics whose cadres presently rule India, the largest democracy in the world. RSS was founded by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (1889-1940) in 1925 who was disillusioned with the Indian freedom st

Regional parties, anti-Congress progressives, civil society groups 'joining' Bharat Jodo

By Harshavardhan Purandare, Sandeep Pandey* The Congress party declared Bharat Chhodo (Quit India) movement against the British regime in 1942. The Congress party has now launched a movement Bharat Jodo (Connecting and Uniting India) against the Modi regime in 2022. Indian people have had a journey of 80 years since Mahatma Gandhi gave that Quit India call to the British and we have to agree that we stand most divided in our modern history when Rahul Gandhi is giving this Bharat Jodo call to the nation. And back then, Congress was a thriving idealistic political movement against the British rulers and now it is an ever weakening political organization electorally defeated several times. However, it is India at stake, not just the Congress party. That is why so many regional political parties, civil society organizations, traditional anti-Congress progressive forces like socialists and communists, intellectuals and civil servants have declared their support and are proactively partici

Shocking? No Covid vaccine trials conducted on pregnant, lactating women: RTI reply

By Rosamma Thomas* A Right to Information applicant who sought details of safety trials conducted in India on pregnant and lactating women for three Covid vaccines in use in India – Covishield, Covaxin and ZyCov-D -- was shocked to learn from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) that Serum Institute, manufacturer of Covishield, and Cadila Healthcare, manufacturer of the ZyCov-D vaccine, had not sought permission for such trials. Bharat Biotech, manufacturer of Covaxin, had sought permission for trial on pregnant women and later withdrawn its application. This response , provided after the applicant was initially unsatisfied with the response and went in appeal, is from the joint drugs controller, CDSCO. It was dated September 13, 2022. One researcher closely following the vaccine rollout, however, is of the opinion that the lack of a trial on pregnant and lactating women is a blessing; potential trial participants and their unborn babies thus escaped harm. Aruna Ro

Grave error? Scholar blames ex-Gujarat babu for anti-Christian riots 'citing fake report'

By Rajiv Shah A few days back, I received a message from one of the finest former Gujarat government bureaucrats, PG Ramrakhiani, a 1964 batch IAS official, who retired in November 2000. I would often interact with him in 1997-99, even later, after I was sent to Gandhinagar as a Times of India man to cover Sachivalaya. Those were turbulent times. Shankarsinh Vaghela was the Gujarat chief minister, under attack from two sides – from the BJP, which he had left to form a separate breakaway party, Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP), one one hand, and the Congress, which was supporting him from outside, on the other. Ramrakhiani, in his message, referred to the book authored by Ghanshyam Shah and Jan Breman, both top-notch scholars who have known Gujarat in and out. Called “Gujarat, Cradle and Harbinger of Identity Politics: India’s Injurious Frame of Communalism”, I reviewed the book in January 2022. It claims that Muslims in Gujarat have been turned into “new untouchables”, thanks to the Hin

Excess to cheetah in Kuno to increase 'woes' of local people, 'disturb' wildlife balance

Bharat Dogra* The release of eight cheetahs into the Kuno National Park ( Madhya Pradesh) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 17, although accompanied by a media blitz, has raised several questions. The animals were flown from Namibia to Gwalior and from there they were taken to the release site in a helicopter. Official sources have stated that this is the first time a large carnivorous species has been moved across continents for establishing a new population. This first release will be followed by others under this project. However, precisely for this reason, it is important to be cautious because if such translocations have been generally avoided in the past, there may have been reasons for this and at the same time we do not have much learning experiences from the past. The Cheetah became extinct in India in 1952, although this very fast moving animal is still remembered in the folklore of many areas. Hence the first impulse is to say that trying to introduce and revive

Introducing non-native cheetahs is 'not equivalent' to restoring pride in the nation

By Bappaditya Mukhopadhyay* The Cheetahs from the African continent has finally been introduced to India by the Indian Prime Minister on his 72nd birthday. The process had started with the previous Government in 2009. However, the Supreme Court clearance was pending owing to the objection by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) plea to reintroduce cheetahs. Finally the clearance was obtained in January 2020 and thereafter Kuno National Park (KNP) was chosen for the reintroduction of first set of Southeast African Cheetahs. In the near future, depending upon the success story of the current reintroduction, more cheetahs from South Africa may also be introduced. This exercise has generated a lot of interest among various stakeholders with opinions on both sides galore. It is important to pose some questions that surround the whole exercise. Let us evaluate some of these arguments. The first set of arguments are quite detached from the issues of conservation as they most

'Military diplomacy': US praises Bangladesh Army for leadership role in UN operations

By Kamal Uddin Mazumder* As the Indo-Pacific region represents the world’s economic and strategic center of gravity, the Indian Ocean today is becoming the centerpiece of all geo-strategic play. Cooperation in the region is crucial to implementing the international community’s global agenda, including achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Major powers like the US have enhanced and deepened their strategic engagement and leadership roles with countries in the region. The Indo-Pacific Army Management Seminar, or IPAMS, is a U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) initiated conference that is aimed at facilitating and enhancing interactions among the armies of the Indo-Pacific region. This year's 46th Indo-Pacific Armies Management Seminar (IPAMS)-2022, co-hosted by the Bangladesh Army and US Army Pacific (USARPAC), concluded in Dhaka. The objective of IPAMS is to promote peace and stability in the region through mutual understanding, dialogue, and friendship. It is the largest confer

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Counterview

Search This Blog