Union Budget 2024-25 – Soaring Ambition Neglected Foundation

August 16, 2024 /Posted byEducationWorld

Like the previous six Union budgets presented by her, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh consecutive budget has missed the opportunity to make adequate provision for foundational literacy and numeracy and basic education for India’s 265 million in-school children – writes Dilip Thakore Long-tenured finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh consecutive Union Budget 2024-25 has attracted favourable comment from industry leaders, academics, media pundits and the commentariat, and brickbats from the rejuvenated opposition party leaders. As usual, industry spokespersons have lauded it. Especially for continuity and attention to macro-economic stability. They derive comfort from the BJP/NDA 3.0 government’s sizeable allocation for infrastructure capex (Rs.11.11 lakh crore of a total budget expenditure of Rs.48.21 lakh crore), overdue attention to boosting the growth of MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and skilling India’s youth to prepare them for gainful employment. On the other hand, leaders of opposition parties who received a new lease…

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“An uneducated Indian is not a free Indian. India’s education system remains trapped in regulations that reward compliance over learning and scarcity over opportunity. The solution to exam leaks, coaching factories and unemployability is not more licensing, but more supply. We need more schools, more colleges, more competition and more education entrepreneurs. A 21st-century education must not only impart knowledge but encourage questioning. India does not need fewer cooks in the kitchen; it needs more cooks, more recipes and fewer bureaucrats guarding empty plates.”

- Manish Sabharwal, The Indian Express, (2/6)

India’s examination system rests on a foundational assumption that the process is fair, even when outcomes disappoint, and once that trust erodes, the system loses its legitimacy. This is not merely a technical controversy but a credibility crisis, because digitising evaluation is not the same as reforming it. Technology can assist evaluation, but it cannot replace the intellectual responsibility that fair assessment demands. The controversy has shown that technology has not removed subjectivity or error, it has merely shifted them into a different format. Educational institutions cannot run experiments on students whose futures depend on these results, and the obligation is to anticipate failure before implementation, not offer explanations after the damage is done.

- P John J Kennedy, The Indian Express, (26/5)

Union Budget 2024-25 – Soaring Ambition Neglected Foundation

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