Budget 2018: From Blackboard to Digital Board, Focus on Education

Union Budget 2018: Government vows to allocate Rs 1 lakh crore to upgrade education infrastructure.

Image used for representational purpose. 

(Photo: Reuters)

The Narendra Modi government hopes to bring about a host of reforms in India’s education sector in 2018-19, finance minister Arun Jaitley indicated in his Budget speech on 1 February.

He announced an allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore to update the education infrastructure. In the Modi’s government’s final full Budget before the Lok Sabha elections, Jaitley said that the government will focus on making sure that education is treated holistically. This is the time to move from blackboards to digital boards, he said.

We have managed to get children to school but quality of education still a concern. Education to be treated holistically without segmentation from class nursery to Class 12.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

To increase digital intensity in education; to move from blackboards to digital boards in classrooms.

In a recent survey, it was highlighted that nearly two out of every five 14- to 18-year-olds in rural India does not know what the country’s capital is.

The government is committed to educating India’s children, Jaitley said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always emphasised that the country’s future depends on its children. Jaitley said that the RISE (Revitalising Infrastructure in School Education) scheme will be financed via a restructured higher education financing agency.

The Finance Minister also listed schemes for higher education.

Government to launch Prime Minister’s Research Fellow Scheme which will identify 1000 B Tech students to do PhD at IITs. Two new schools of planning and architecture to be set up.

Arun Jaitley

Further, the Finance Minister added: “By 2022, every block with more than 50 percent Scheduled Tribe population will have Ekalvya schools at par with Navodaya Vidyalayas."

The Union Government also plans to make amendments to the Right to Education Act and set a new target of training 13 lakh teachers.