Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2021 today. Over 15,000 schools will be qualitatively strengthened under New Education Policy (NEW), which will help in handholding and mentoring other schools, according to the Union Budget for 2021-22 announced on Monday.
She announced a new Central University in Leh, Ladakh; a plan to have an “Umbrella Structure” in nine cities that have a large number of educational institutions concentrated in them and that a Bill to set up a Higher Education Commission of India will be moved this year.
To improve the nutritional outcomes, Poshan 2.0 scheme has been launched in budget 2021. The supplementary nutrition program and the Poshan Abhiyaan has been merged to launch mission Poshan 2.0 to strengthen nutrition content. Out of Rs. 24,435 crore allocated to the Welcome Child Development (WCD) Ministry an amount of Rs 20,105 crore has been assigned to Saksham Anganwadi and Poshan 2.0.
Poshan 2.0 is an “Umbrella Scheme” covering the Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS), Anganwadi Service, Poshan Abhiyaan, Scheme for Adolescent Girls, National Creche scheme.
A total of 100 new Sainik Schools have been planned to set up in partnership with private schools, NGOs, and states. To improve the quality of schools, major guidelines have been issued. FM said that all the Sainik Schools are established and managed by the Sainik School Society under the Defence Ministry. More than 15,000 schools will be immunized by including all the major aspects of the new education policy. They shall emerge as exemplar schools in their regions, handholding, and mentoring other schools to achieve the ideals of the policy.
FM Sitharaman said in her budget speech, “making board exam easy, reduction of curriculum to crore concept, replacement of 10+12 structure of school curricula with a 5+3+3+4 structure are teaching up to at least class 5 in the mother tongue or a regional language, are among the many school education reforms outlined in the new education policy, which was announced last year. This is the first budget after the notification of the new NEP”.
This year education ministry will Rs. 54,873.66 crore for the upcoming financial year as compared Rs. 59, 845 crore last year. Funds for KV and Navodaya Vidyalayas have been also increased Rs 6,800 and Rs 3,800 respectively.
The Mid-Day meal scheme saw an increase of Rs. 500 crore as the total allocation has been raised to Rs 11,500 crore from Rs 11,000 last year.
Click here for more Education News
