Significantly underinvested in education by the BJP government: Forum
Bahutva Karnataka, a forum for justice and peace, evaluated the performance of the current BJP administration at the federal level on Wednesday and said that the Union administration has significantly underinvested in education. The forum further said, “The funding that the Union Government provides to the Ministry of Education (MoE) is so pitifully small that even the New York City education budget is many times higher.”
The forum representatives are issuing a series of studies called “Guarantee Checks” that evaluate the performance claims made by the current administration by comparing official assertions with evidence from official or other sources. This is an attempt to make it easier for voters to pick candidates. The forum just produced a report on education after the publication of a study on employment in March.
“The MoE has a budget that’s equivalent to approximately 0.4% of GDP (about a third of New York City’s education spend), which amounts to a highly inadequate contribution of around Rs 700 per Indian per year (much lower than Brazil or South Africa, fellow BRICS nations, spend on their citizens),” the press release from the forum stated on Wednesday, “despite its repeated promises to invest 6% of GDP in citizens’ education.”
The combined contributions of the states, which account for around 3.4% of GDP, exceed those of the Center. While in the opposition in 2013, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made vehement criticisms of the nation’s poor investment on education. According to the study, he had then proposed that total expenditure in education should be 7% of GDP rather than the 4% that it was at the time (and where it is still now since the Center is hesitant to provide the funding).
The conference noted that half of Indian university graduates are jobless, and that inadequate early childhood care and education puts Indians at risk for cognitive and physical deficits. These issues stem from inadequate investment in education.
