Educationist welcomes Budget focus on school assessment plan

The just-presented Union Budget has made an "impressive" outlay for the education sector and rightly emphasised on learning outcome assessment in schools, said educationist Raghav Podar today.
Focus on learning outcome assessment in schools has made the Budget for 2017-2018, presented on February 1, a meaningful exercise, he said.
Overall, the Budget has pegged an outlay of Rs 79,685.95 crore for the education sector for FY 2017-18, up from Rs 72,394 crore in 2016-17, a 9.9 per cent rise. Of the total outlay, Rs 46,356.25 is for the school sector and the rest for higher education.
"The Budget has asked for learning assessment in schools. This is the best news we have heard in a long time. The education outlay in the budget is impressive, especially since 58 per cent of it is towards school education.

"But who will assess what children are learning in these schools - that seems to be the question the Budget is asking," said the Trustee of Podar Education Group.
He added that a report released in January 2017 on the annual Status of Education (ASER 2016), said the percentage of children in standard five who can do division, has declined from 42.5 per cent in 2007 to 26 per cent in 2016, while the percentage of those who can read a standard two text has dropped from 53 per cent in 2006 to 48 per cent in 2016.
"Only a fourth of students in standard five can read English sentences. In this context, it seems quite obvious that one way of improving learning outcomes through the budget could be through outcome-linked financing.

"The Centre could provide 10 per cent of aid to the states only if they reach certain pre-decided outcomes, such as learning goals," he said.