'Expect reforms in education policies in Budget 2020'

By Karishmma V Mangal ,

"The education sector featured prominently in Honourable Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman's, maiden budget in 2019 which was quite encouraging. I believe that further reforms in the education policies in the 2020 budget, will be favourable for the sector. To support and strengthen Indian education; initiatives, schemes, and policy inform should be implemented that promote India as an emerging global education hub and improve the overall quality of education within the country.

I support the highlight and landmark development of the 2019 budget which was the introduction of the New National Education Policy. However, I hope in 2020, the government will strive to bring about critical changes by addressing certain pain points including research and innovation, global visibility, quality faculty, and technology.

Most education entrepreneurs like me are hoping that the scope of higher education in India will be radically reformed. I believe that the idea should be to focus on better academic outcomes.

Rather than only focussing on imparting knowledge and learning to students, it’s high time we make them industry ready which is only possible by improving facilities in educational institutions by setting up smart classrooms and modern research facilities, and making artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, and Internet of Things (IoT) a part of student learning programs.

Besides reforms in the overall quality of education for students, faculty training should be made mandatory too. The country has roughly 8.5 million teachers and only 19,000 teacher training institutions. Teacher counselling programs should aim at training teachers to address the current learning needs of the students.

Lastly, subsidising education loans is also the need of the hour as the funds given by banks for students looking to study abroad is too low considering the cost of education.”

(The writer is Director and Trutee of Thakur International School Cambridge)