Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Interim budget proves beneficial for education sector

The sixth interim budget presented by Pranab Mukherjee passed with flying colors in terms of allocated investments in the critical education sector. The outlay on higher education increased 9 fold in the Eleventh Five Year Plan also an ordinance promulgated for establishing 15 Central Universities.

The major higlights seen where, a newly centrally sponsored scheme launched to universalize education at secondary stage in the year 2008-09. In addition to 6 new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Punjab and Gujrat which started functioning in 2008-09, two more IITs in Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh are expected to commence their academic session in
2009-10.

5 Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) announced earlier have become functional. 2 new schools of planning and architecture at Vijayawada and Bhopal have started functioning.

Teaching is expected to commence from academic year 2009-10 in four out of six new Indian Institute of Management proposed for the Eleventh Plan in Haryana, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Tamilnadu. 500 ITIs upgraded into centers of excellence, while a National Skill Development Corporation was created in July, 2008 with initial corpus of Rs. 10 billion.

Thanks to revision in educational loan scheme by the government number of beneficiaries increased from 0.31 million to 1.4 million and amount of loan outstanding increased from Rs.45 billion as on Mar, 31, 2004 to Rs.242.60 billion as on Sep. 30, 2008.

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