Union Education Budget 2019: Key highlights

The union budget has been allocated ₹94,853.64 crore for the education sector in 2019-20, an increase of nearly ₹10,000 crore from the 2018-19 budget.

In the union budget, presented on 5th July by the Finance Minister: Nirmala Sitharaman, following are the key highlights-

New National Education Policy

With a vision to transform the education sector in the next ten years, the government will introduce the New National Education Policy. Significant changes are proposed for both secondary and higher education levels, with emphasis given to research and innovation.

Samagra Siksha Abhiyan, an umbrella scheme which includes all other education-related schemes within it, has been launched in this budget.

National Research Foundation (NRF)

This budget encompasses setting up of NRF for funding, coordination and promotion of research in the country. NRF will even assimilate the research grants being given by various ministries independent of each other. Funds available to other ministries for research will be integrated into NRF and this would be adequately supplemented with additional funds. The main aim of NRF is to strengthen the overall ecosystem of the country.

NRF will fund all the four broad areas of Science, Technology, Social Sciences, and Arts and Humanities.

Setting World Class Institutions

₹400 crore has been allocated for the year 2019-2020 to set up world-class institutions in the country. The allocation amount is nearly 3 times more than the revised estimates for the previous year. With an aim to improve the Indian education system, it is a step towards the right direction as only 3 of our institutions ranks in the top 200 in the world university ranking.

Study in India Scheme

With the brain drain taking place in India, this scheme is to retain the Indian students in India itself and further getting foreign students to study in Indian higher educational institutions. It is already an operational framework, but this budgetary allocation from the centre will give it a major boost and make it one of the priority areas. The grants will help increase the outreach efforts in the 30 targeted countries in South Asia, SAARC, Middle East and Africa, MINA and CIS regions and attract more students.