Union Budget 2021: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her third Budget speech on Monday produced some critical announcements relating to the education sector and on the coaching and upskilling front. The Finance Minister announced a total of 93,224.31 crore for the Ministry of Education this year, in comparison to final budget’s allocation of Rs 99,311.52 crore.
On the ability improvement front and to improve possibilities for youth, in her Budget for 2021-22 speech, the Finance Minister proposed to amend the Apprenticeship Act and realign the National Apprenticeship Training Scheme for post-education apprenticeship, coaching of graduates and diploma holders in engineering. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set aside more than Rs 3,000 crore for this goal in the Budget for 2021-22.
In terms of announcements for Education Sector in Union Budget 2021, finance minister announced the setting up of a Higher Education Commission of India, one hundred new Sainik schools and a central university in Leh.
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Among the big announcements from the education sector in the Budget for 2021-22, she also stressed on the require to enhance collaboration with foreign institutions as properly as strengthening more than 15,000 schools as per the National Education Policy (NEP).
The Union Budget 2021-22 focuses on driving notable progress in the educational technique by way of transformation in the mastering framework from conventional rote mastering format to an evolved and engaged pedagogical method for students in K12, mentioned Srini Raghavan, co-Founder and CEO of Educational Initiatives. “The government has shown the commitment to take a number of steps to reform assessments in India including Board Exam reforms and making assessments focus on conceptual learning in school, which we welcome,” Raghavan added.
Commenting on the budgetary allocations, Rameswar Mandali, founder and CEO of Skill Monks, mentioned that enhancing employment possibilities at the greater educational level by allocating Rs 3,000 crore in National Apprenticeship Training Scheme is a palpable consideration in the Union Budget 2020-21, for students from each non-science and technologies streams. “This will ensure that skilling is prioritised and enable students to be future-ready, in the domain of their choice and stay relevant in a dynamic market environment,” he added.
Mohan Lakhamraju, founder and CEO of Great Learning, also welcomed the allocation of Rs 3,000 crore towards realignment of the current scheme of National Apprenticeship Training Scheme in order to provide post-education apprenticeship to engineering graduates and diploma holders. “It will help create talent that is employable and equipped with the right set of skills for the industry ensuring professionals are job-ready. The moves to join forces with UAE to benchmark skill qualification and introduction of collaborative training programs with the Japanese workforce are also steps in the right direction. This will help us keep our skilling endeavours in sync with global trends,” he added.
The proposal to implement Data Analytics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to upgrade the functioning of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs was also welcomed by business players. Nikhil Barshikar, founder and managing director of Imarticus Learning, mentioned, “Specifically, the ministry’s database management systems will be overhauled, leading to increased efficiency in e-scrutiny, e-adjudication, e-consultation and compliance management. To accomplish this, highly skilled Indian data scientists and analysts will be required.”
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The business members also mentioned that finance minister’s observation in the Budget 2021 speech that India will have the world’s biggest working-age population by 2030 which requires to be skilled for the job was spot on. Narayan Mahadevan, founder of BridgeLabz-Platform avered, “Internship and apprenticeship is the best way to garner the required job skills. I wish the government had definitive plans to accomplish the same and even encourage such platforms that work towards skilling from the perspective of employability and create business models on successful employment.”
Notably, the finance minister also mentioned that an initiative is underway in partnership with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to benchmark ability qualifications, assessment, and certification, accompanied by the deployment of certified workforce.
And in order to market enhanced academic collaboration with foreign greater educational institutions, in the Budget for 2021-22 Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to place in spot a regulatory mechanism to permit dual degrees, joint degrees, twinning arrangements and other such mechanisms.
Decoding Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Union Budget 2021 :