Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the 2021-22 Union Budget in the Parliament today. During her speech, Sitharaman announced initiatives which are expected to provide a big thrust to the education sector. She proposed to quantitatively strengthen 15,000 schools under the National Education Policy and develop more than 100 new Sanik schools.
“100 new Sainik schools will be set up in partnership with NGOs, private schools, and states. We would be introducing the legislation this year to implement the setting-up of Higher Education Commission of India”, said the FM.
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1356135712844730369?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe Finance Minister further said that there are other ‘umbrella’ structures to be created for higher education. The government also proposed to form a new higher educational panel and International partnership for skill training.
The Union Government also announced a central university in Leh, in order to ensure easier access to higher education in Ladakh and more schools in tribal areas. The Union Budget 2021 announced Rs 50,000 crore in the Budget for National Research Foundation for the period of five years. This will focus on national priorities such as digital payments and national language translation mission that would translate.
The idea is to promote research and development and spur innovation in the country, said the Union Finance Minister, furthering that the national language mission would translate governance-related documents available online to major Indian languages.
This is Finance Minister Sitharaman’s third budget under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a significant departure from the tradition, this year’s Budget is unique as it was presented paperless.