BENGALURU: Evaluating the performance of the incumbent BJP government at the Centre, Bahutva Karnataka, a forum for justice and harmony, on Wednesday claimed that the Union Government BJP has massively under-invested in education. “The funding that the Union Government provides to the Ministry of Education (MoE) is so pitifully small that even the education budget of the New York City is many times higher,” the forum furthered alleged.
In a bid to enable voters to elect candidates, forum representatives are releasing a series of reports titled ‘Guarantee Checks’, evaluating the incumbent government’s claims concerning performance, by presenting official claims and juxtaposing them with evidence from official or other sources. After releasing a report on employment in March, the forum released an education report recently.
“Despite its repeated promises to invest 6% of GDP in citizens’ education, the MoE has a budget that’s equivalent to approximately 0.4% of GDP (about a third of the New York City’s education spend), which amounts to a highly inadequate contribution of around Rs 700 per Indian per year (much lower than Brazil or South Africa, fellow BRICS nations, spend on their citizens),” claimed a press release from the forum on Wednesday.
The Centre’s contributions fall short of the states’ contribution, who altogether contribute around 3.4% of GDP. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been stridently critical of the low education spending in the country in 2013 when in the opposition. He had then suggested that overall investment in education should be 7% of GDP and not around the 4% that it was (and where it still remains, thanks to the Centre’s unwillingness to pony up the money), the report alleged.
The forum remarked that due to the poor investment in education, Indians are at risk of cognitive and physical impairments as a result of poor Early Childhood Care and Education, and in higher education, half the graduates are found to be unemployed.