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Outlay for education in 12th Plan to be four times higher

The government aims to spend R4.13 lakh crore on higher education during the 12th Plan period, about four times the amount allocated in the previous plan at R84,943 crore.

The government aims to spend R4.13 lakh crore on higher education during the 12th Plan period (2012-17), about four times the amount allocated in the previous plan at R84,943 crore. According to the ministry of human resource development (MHRD), majority of the funding would be used to set up new institutions and expanding the existing ones. The list includes state universities, general degree colleges and professional and technical educational institutions.

In the previous plan period, the share of education in the total plan outlay correspondingly increased from 7.7% to 19.4%. Thus, around 50% of the 11th plan outlay was devoted for elementary education and literacy, 20% for secondary education and 30% for higher and technical education.

?The thrust of the 12th plan is on consolidation of the existing institutes and strengthening the existing central universities, new Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management and state universities with infrastructure and faculty. More than establishing new institutes, quality improvement by funding states to improve their education infrastructure is the focus,? said a ministry official.

Setting up of new institutes pertains to the Universities for Innovation which are proposed to be created in the 12th plan at a cost of R2,500 crore and the ministry is also planning to cover a minimum of 50% students through various financing schemes as part of demand side management in higher education in the 12thPlan.

?The allocation in the 11th plan was more than R84,000 crore but the amount spent was close to R40,000 crore. Hence, the increase now is almost 10 times of the spend,? said a planning commission official. The 12thplan approach paper mentions that about 18% of all government education spending or about 1.12 percentage of GDP is spent on higher education today. This should be raised to 25% and 1.5% respectively.

An increase of 0.38% of GDP means an additional allocation of about R25,000 crore to higher education for the centre and the states taken together.

The outlay is in line with the government?s target of increasing the gross enrollment ratio (GER) in higher education from 15% now to 20% by 2017 and 25% by 2022.

Moreover, this year’s budget talked about the setting up of the Credit Guarantee Fund to serve the credit needs of students and this assumes significance as the total outstanding loans of public sector banks for education as on March 31, 2011 stood at R43,074 crore in more than 22 lakh accounts.

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First published on: 15-05-2012 at 03:04 IST
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