Budgeting for School Education: What Has Changed and What Has Not?
The study presents an analysis of school education budgets of six states viz. Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, in the 14th Finance Commission period. It highlights issues of adequacy, implications for quality of school education and priorities for inclusion in budgeting for school education. It also poses some questions pertaining to effectiveness of the process of fund utilisation by reviewing outcome budgets of education departments at the union and state level.
The study findings show an improvement in provisioning of financial resources for school education in all the six study states during the 14th Finance Commission period. However, it also reveals the significant gaps in budgeting that have persisted over time. The study underscores the fact that relatively poorer states are still struggling to adequately finance even the two most basic components in school education, viz. availability of professionally qualified teachers and infrastructure. Moreover, the analysis draws attention for the need to bring in a stronger 'outcome orientation' in budgeting for school education.
