Leaders in the Education Arena Share Union Budget Reactions

Rohan Sagar, Member – Governing Council, Dayananda Sagar University

I find some of the proposals with regards to education in the Union Budget 2021 to be extremely positive, well-thought through and welcome. The particularly good measures are the move to qualitatively strengthen more than 15,000 schools to include all components of the National Education Policy.

These schools are to emerge as exemplar schools in their regions, hand-hold and mentor other schools to achieve the ideals envisaged by the Policy.The decision to bring in legislation for the establishment of the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) is a laudable move. The HECI is expected to be an umbrella body having 4 separate vehicles for standard-setting, accreditation, regulation, and funding. 

The proposal for investing Rs 3,000 crore for skilling through post-education apprenticeship, training of graduates and diploma holders in Engineering is significant and the Finance Minister deserves accolades for the same. Deploying these skilled young people at foreign destinations will go a long way in providing employment to the educated workforce. 

The collaboration between India and Japan on the Training Inter Training Programme (TITP) to facilitate the transfer of Japanese industrial and vocational skills, technique, and knowledge and the proposal to set aside Rs 50,000 crores, over a period of 5 years to support research through the National Research Foundation (NRF) are extremely useful and timely.

Anshuman Das, CEO, and Co-founder, CareerNet

It is a welcome sign to see the Union Government heeding to the industry’s recommendation to stimulate the development of new-age, high-value skills. The government underlining its emphasis on skill development is certainly a boost to the industry.

The budget aims to address the strategic pillar of talent by facilitating the supply of organized talent. The proposed initiatives in skilling and the spotlight on the country’s manufacturing sector is a move in the right direction to address the talent gap in high-tech manufacturing. 

Initiatives in partnership with the United Arab Emirates which aims to benchmark skill qualifications, assessment, and certification as well as having collaborative Training Inter Training Programme (TITP) between India and other countries are positive steps towards moving from being a base knowledge economy to becoming the preferred destination for high-end skills.

Sanjeev Goel, Business Head – Consumer Goods & Others, UNext

Human capital has been identified as one of the six strategic pillars for India. Towards this, one of the most significant and far-reaching moves in today’s Budget is the proposed legislation for setting up of the Higher Education Commission as an umbrella body to replace various regulatory bodies but having four separate vehicles for standard-setting, accreditation, regulation, and funding, is a step in the right-direction.  The other is the PPP model for higher education. We await further details in the detailed press releases in the next few days.  

Navneet Sharma, Registrar, Vijaybhoomi University 

I see the twin push to infrastructure and education as the key takeaways from the Budget 2021. A total of 5.33 lac crore rupees have been allocated to roads, railways, and power sectors. Such push should help trigger the growth reaction not only in these sectors but also ripples in many associated sectors.  

The higher education sector is going to witness the new Higher Education Commission and also an outlay of Rs 50 thousand crores on the National Research Foundation (NRF). NRF allocation is in follow up to the last year’s budget announcement. The announcement of qualitatively strengthening 15,000 schools under National Education Policy is likely to exert favourable impact on school education. Overall, education deserved  more than what has been offered in this budget.

Surabhi Goel, CEO – Aditya Birla World Academy

The measures announced by the finance minister in today’s union budget 2021 focuses on two important aspects – one is the continuous upskilling of India’s youth and also providing education for all. We are in-line with the announcement as Aditya Birla Education Academy is at the forefront of creating various programs that help the educators of the country upskill themselves.

Finance minister Niramala Sitharaman has set aside funds worth 3000 crore with an aim to create an opportunity for millenials of India to upskill themselves. The budget also provided an impetus on establishing a National Research Foundation by allocating Rs 50,000 crore thereby qualitatively strengthening the education system through the National Education Policy.

At Aditya Birla World Academy and The Aditya Birla Integrated School, the focus has always been on creating a cohesive learning environment for the students even through the online medium over the course of last year. We aim to make the students future ready by imparting practical learning along with theory based sessions. We believe that the measures announced by the government will further boost in augmenting the education sector of the country.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay