BENGALURU: As Karnataka heads into the 2025 budget, the key question is: Has last year’s Rs 44,422 crore allocation for the education department brought any real improvement? In 2024, the state government earmarked 12% of its total education expenditure, increasing funds by Rs 6,800 crore from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s interim budget in July 2023.
The focus was on teacher recruitments, upgrading rural and minority schools, and providing free electricity and water to government schools and PU colleges. ‘Navu Manujaru,’ a two-hour weekly session on social harmony and scientific temper, was also introduced. However, despite these allocations, many schools continue to struggle with the very same issues, raising concerns if the upcoming budget will address these gaps or just add to the list of unfulfilled promises.
One of the biggest demands ahead of the 2025 budget is the recruitment of teachers at primary and secondary levels — something experts, educationists and even officials within the department have been pushing for. More than 59,700 teaching posts were vacant earlier and still remain unfilled.
The last budget also promised Rs 50 crore to improve science and computer labs and provide internet in government high schools with higher enrollment. But a year later, the numbers have not moved. Only 5,308 schools — just 10.68% of the total — have internet access. The figures were exactly the same when the plan was announced, reveals data from the education department.
In the 2024 budget, the education department introduced Navu Manujaru, a two-hour weekly class designed to foster scientific temper and social harmony. However, the programme has received mixed reactions from teachers. While some say it has positively impacted students, others argue that it never truly took off.
Experts and child rights activists say that on several occasions, they have requested the government to restart the free bicycle scheme. The school education department had also proposed its reintroduction during the last budget discussions. But the scheme has remained discontinued since Covid. Officials told TNIE that they have requested for the scheme again and hope it is restarted.
The budget proposed Ganitha-Ganaka to help children improve their mathematical skills. But the state has only 8,895 science and mathematics teachers for nearly 22 lakh students from Classes 1 to 5. The government also announced free electricity and water to all government schools and pre-university colleges, earmarking Rs 25 crore. But officials say the Karnataka State Examination and Assessment Board and other authorities are still demanding payment for these utilities.
Experts say that while many promises were made, they remained only in the budget outlay. Development educationist Professor Niranjanaradhya VP told TNIE that the government must at least fulfill two primary needs — teacher recruitment and a clear roadmap to ensure sufficient funds are directed towards development, as a large portion of the budget is currently spent on teacher salaries.
Expectations
When TNIE reached out to educationists and department officials, they said they are expecting funds to be directed towards teacher recruitments, teacher training, upgraded infrastructure, and internet facilities. They also expect the government to resume the free bicycle scheme.