The Union Budget is not progressive enough according to academicians and educationists from the state, who feel it could have done more for research and improving the quality of school and college education.
While welcoming the inclusion of school and higher education in the negative list for service tax as it could make education mo-re affordable, Prof. S. Vaid-hyasubramaniam, dean (pl-anning and development), SASTRA University, Thanjavur, regretted that higher education had not received as much funds as last year.
“After paying salaries and allowances, there is little money left for quality improvement. Also the res-earch allocation of `460 crore does not encompass engineering and sciences,” he noted.
General secretary of the State Platform for Common School System, P.B. Prince Gajendra Babu, felt the credit guarantee fund announced in the Budget was not a progressive measure because it would lead to students emerging from colleges in debt and discourage them from pursuing research as a career because money would then be a priority.
“The Budget has announced setting up of 6,000 new model schools but has not allotted funds to improve the quality of government schools. There‘s nothing progressi-ve about it,” he said.
To former VC of Anna University and member of state planning commission, Prof. E. Balagurusamy the Budget came as a disappointment as he felt it did not invest enough in improving the standard of both school and university education. “On the one hand you want to increase the student enrolment ratio, but on the other you don’t invest enough to make this possible,” he said.
We need a minimum allocation of five per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in education but the Centre allots a mere 3.7 per cent, which is less than the global average”, he said.