The Hindu : National : Due allocation for education still an elusive goal

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Due allocation for education still an elusive goal

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Not only is the United Progressive Alliance far from delivering on its National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) promise of allocating six per cent of the Gross Domestic Product to education but the allocation also dipped in percentage terms in 2007-08 compared to the preceding year.

According to the Economic Survey 2007-08, the Budget Estimates of the expenditure on education stood at 2.84 per cent of the GDP in the current fiscal. In 2006-07, the expenditure as per the Revised Estimates was 2.88 per cent. Though the expenditure on education as a percentage of the GDP in the past two years was higher than the first two years of the UPA rule, it still falls short of the 2.9 per cent achieved in 2002-03 during the National Democratic Alliance regime.

In the NCMP, the UPA pledged to raise public spending on education to at least six per cent of the GDP in a phased manner. Starting lower than 2.74 per cent of the GDP in the last year of NDA rule (2003-04), the allocation in 2004-05 was 2.67 per cent. Though it went up to 2.69 in 2005-06 and stood at 2.88 per cent in the Revised Estimates for 2006-07, the allocation is still below the halfway mark of the promised target.

Last year the Planning Commission, in fact, said India could hope to achieve the target — first set in the National Policy on Education in 1986 — only during XII Plan. By the end of this Plan — which is slated to see a manifold increase in allocation for education given the stress on expanding higher education and universalising secondary education — the total expenditure as a percentage of the GDP is expected to hover around five per cent.

The Survey also refers to this elusive goal of allocating six per cent of the GDP to education. It says policies and programmes are necessary “for honouring the country’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and ‘Education For All’ as well as the commitment under the NCMP for increasing public expenditure on education to six per cent of the GDP….”

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