Public Expenditure on Education Stagnates at 4% of GDP
Public expenditure on education in India has remained at approximately 4% of the GDP, well below the long-standing policy target of 6%, according to the handbook 'Realising Rights: A Handbook of Welfare in India', released by Azim Premji University on Thursday. The handbook provides a comprehensive assessment of India's welfare landscape through an analysis of major rights-based interventions of the Union government.
It notes that while government spending on education has risen in absolute terms over the years, it has failed to keep pace with economic growth. 'Between the early 1990s and the mid-2010s, total government expenditure on education fluctuated between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent of GDP. The target of 6 per cent of GDP, recommended by the Kothari Commission in 1968 and reaffirmed in successive National Education Policies, including NEP 2020, has never been achieved,' the handbook states.
Learning Crisis Described as a 'National Emergency'
In the education chapter, authored by Anuradha De and Amarjeet Sinha, the authors describe India's learning crisis as a 'national emergency.' They write, 'As a country, India is at risk of growing old before it becomes rich if this challenge is not addressed with urgency.'
The handbook also traces the financial commitments made towards universal elementary education. It notes that the Muhiram Saikia Committee of Education Ministers (1997) and the Tapas Majumdar Committee (1999) were constituted to estimate the additional resources required to make the universalisation of elementary education (Classes I-VIII) a fundamental right.
Historical Financial Estimates and the Right to Education Act
The Tapas Majumdar Committee estimated that an additional Rs 1,36,823 crore would be required over a 10-year period to achieve this objective. Subsequently, a committee of education ministers under the then HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi was tasked with revising the estimate within what it termed the 'pragmatic realm of the possible'.
However, when the Right to Education Act was enacted in 2009, it did not include a specific financial memorandum, the handbook notes.
Declining Share of Samagra Shiksha Scheme
It further points out that between 2019-20 and 2025-26, the share of the Samagra Shiksha scheme in the Department of School Education and Literacy's budget declined from 62 per cent to 51 per cent. At present, the Centre and states share funding for the Samagra Shiksha scheme in a 90:10 ratio for the eight northeastern states and Uttarakhand, and in a 60:40 ratio for all other states and Union Territories.
Call for Increased Public Investment
Calling for greater public investment in education, the handbook recommends revising the funding arrangement. 'This trend must be reversed. The Centre and states should agree to contribute to education on a 50:50 basis for at least the next ten years, with convergence at the gram panchayat and urban local body levels,' it says.
