The Union Budget 2021-22 for the education sector should address challenges of quality education

While the Covid situation hasn’t come to a rest, the Union Budget 2021-22 will be declared in the midst of remarkable conditions. The delayed conclusion of educational institutions for almost one curriculum year because of the Covid-19 pandemic has put massive pressure, with numerous schools feeling the heat of financial pressure now.

The higher education sector is probably going to turn into a vital recipient of the forthcoming State Budget. Other than reserving a huge segment of allocation for infrastructure development, the government authority has focused on introducing changes prior to heading for the Assembly decisions.

Last year witnessed new educational changes with the introduction of the National Education Policy (NEP 2020). It brings foundational education into the spotlight and focuses on experiential learning instead of scorecards and pass checks, and many industry experts view it as progressive.

To add to it, there have been numerous instances where guardians were not able to pay school fees, which have influenced the working of numerous schools. Thinking about this uncommon circumstance, it is expected that the Budget 2021-22 expands some sort of tax moratorium, which could be accommodated an all-encompassing time of up to a year, till the time normalcy is reestablished

The Budget 2021-22 should address this major challenge to overcome any barrier in quality education. It is expected that more monetary funds are distributed to give a push to the digital education format. To connect the digital divide and fortify India’s promising EdTech startup environment, the impending Budget 2021 should plan to give a better internet infrastructure, strong information security frameworks, and more tax exemption.

Industry accepts that a GST rate cut could go far in urging students to take up online education. Educational institutions and courses are burdened 18%, which the business needs to decrease to 5%. Government has been giving such a lot of emphasis on the utilization of digital services and financial incorporation in the BFSI segment. All things considered, taking everything into account, just conventional school education has been kept out of GST. Advancement and fiddling-based edtech firms actually need to pay GST at 18%. There ought to be some arrangement wherein they need to pay reduced GST at 5% or somewhere in the vicinity.

Besides, an initiative should be made in overcoming any issues in quality education between rural and urban areas. In such a manner, technology plays a key role. This would be useful in making sure about the future of millions of kids from tier-I and II cities.

Budget 2021 should guarantee the availability of technology and resources for distance learning and building a full set-up of online learning platforms. Generally speaking, there is a need to put resources into building human resources capabilities and guaranteeing uniform training norms and abilities for digital education.

The government authority should step in and help in boosting online learning courses and promote the online learning platforms, making it sound reliable for students and guardians to acknowledge. Likewise, the students face phenomenal difficulties in understanding the digital framework. Hence, awareness around that too should likewise be done to help the society

The government should give educational institutions monetary help through the Union Budget 2021-2022, by offering endowments on essential infrastructural facilities, giving access to finances supported by moratorium period and collateral free loans. Additionally, to empower quality edtech startups and more experts to get into the skilling space, the government should consider tax holidays for initial two years of operation.

While the supreme amount of expenditure in the training space has expanded throughout the long-term, nonetheless, it has decreased as far as the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The authority can look towards building an ecosystem that advances cutting-edge research and development of the infrastructure required in the education sector.

It is anticipated that an exhaustive strategy would be worked out in Budget 2021-22 so the greater part of the issues that have emerged because of the startling situation are very much dealt with in the long-term.