Education grant too small, say teachers

Criticising the Union Budget for not giving enough funds for education, the All India Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisation yesterday said it would lead to the decline of public-funded education because only an additional Rs 5,778 crore had been allocated.

"This insignificant increase was nowhere near the promise made in the national common minimum programme of raising allocation to 6 per cent of GDP to the education sector," V K Tewari, general secretary of the federation, said, alleging that successive central governments had defeated the education policy of 1968, which declared raising public sending on education to 6 per cent by 1985-86.

The Union government had not paid heed to the recommendations of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) Committee report of raising allocation to 6 per cent this year, he added.

"It is shocking that the centre's share had gone down from 0.67 per cent to 0.58 per cent in the last year's budget as compared to 2004-05. Total share of the states had been around 2.8 per cent, so it was expected that the centre will contribute much more to the uplift of education" he said.

The Federation termed it a conspiracy to vacate the space of knowledge production through the university system and Research & Development sector and thus to allow foreign and local private universities to occupy the space.

Under the prevailing circumstances, higher education would become costlier and would edge out more people from the average economic background and cause a serious blow to sustainable development, he claimed.