Union Budget 2022: What the education sector expects

With Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set to present the Modi government's eighth Budget on February 1, track this blog to know what the education sector is expecting this year. Stay tuned for updates.

'GST should be reduced so that more people can invest in digital education'

ByMadhu Agrawal, Co-founder of Clever Harvey

"The last two years of the pandemic have been full of ups and downs for many industries worldwide and needless to say, the education industry isn't spared either. While Edtech has seen a significant boom, there are factors that still need to be reconsidered by the Government of India in the upcoming Union Budget that can help boost the edtech industry which is the future of education.

According to us, one of the key areas of concern for all edtech companies is the disparity in the GST treatment of print educational solutions vs digital educational solutions. For example, a textbook is charged 5% GST whereas the same book in an online format is charged 18% GST. We've seen the potential of online educational material increasing access to education and the quality of education. We are expecting this GST should be reduced so that more people can invest in digital education. We hope that the Government of India reconsiders this in the upcoming budget announcement and builds a fair and equivalent system for offline as well as online education providers."

'Budget may open doors to the facilitators working diligently to bring educational equity'

ByShashank Pandey, Co-founder, ConveGenius

"Building a solid digital education ecosystem that enables skilling is a sure-fire way to combat the current pandemic. The NEP-2020 initiated significant changes in the Education System of our country - it created a niche for EdTech, permitted flexibility in the learning curve, and emphasised blended learning. With the government’s numerous laudable steps to build an e-learning ecosystem, India still requires a lot to educate its youth, and the upcoming union budget may open doors to the facilitators working diligently to bring educational equity to this #NayaBharat. I hope the upcoming Union Budget would support the perfect blending of digital & traditional education and strive to encourage the adoption of emerging technologies. Moreover, the government should make more efforts to engage in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science training sessions at the grassroots level and build up capacities and acumen for new-age tech domains in educational institutions.

Another important aspect to be considered is improved internet connectivity infrastructure across the nation that promotes last-mile access, affordable 5G devices, and most importantly helps EdTech companies with strong data protection laws."

Expectations Overseas Higher Education from upcoming Budget 2022

By Prateek Gujral, Principal Advisor (South Asia), Augustana University, South Dakota, US,

"As a result of the despondency that engulfed the country during the previous fiscal year, Budget 2022-23 will be a watershed event in many ways. It can create the framework for India's long-term fiscal progress, allowing it to realise its dream of becoming a prosperous economy. This is the year to restructure and revitalise the economy, which has been severely impacted by the pandemic.

Covid-19 has certainly thrown humanity countless challenges that will take years to address. However, the education sector responded quickly to the pandemic's issues, virtually entirely migrating to an online mode of delivery in a short period.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have understood that this transformation is for the better, and they will keep using technology in the classroom even after the pandemic is over. But a lot of investment in infrastructure development is required to involve not just machinery but seamless Internet connections as well.

HEIs expect the government to recognise this fact and urge regulators to make the required changes to their regulatory frameworks to accommodate a mix of both offline and online learning.

It is critical to emphasize that education will play a critical role in assisting the government in achieving its objective of making India a $5 trillion economy by 2025, and as a result, education must be accorded the same importance as other major economic sectors.

India's National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has opened up the movement of both students and teachers across the world. Besides, it puts a lot of emphasis on research collaborations and mutually beneficial academic partnerships.

India and the United States share a lot of synergies, especially in the field of education. Strengthening the collaborations between educational institutions of the two countries, by interlinking academia and industry, can prove a boon for economies of both. The idea is to have more student and academic exchanges as well as joint research programmes.

Inter-institutional linkages and the formation of city-based R&D clusters need a lot of push both in terms of funding and monitoring the spending. Also, the Govt’s proposal of setting up of national research foundation (NRF) is set to improve the research ecosystem in the country.

Talking about the interest of the US, the American universities, whether big or small, are looking forward to partnering with India to build on the 21st-century skills in common areas of interest like AI, ML, cybersecurity, data science, healthcare, biotechnology, climate change, sustainability, and agriculture.

Integrated learning should be the top priority and funds must flow in the right direction. Regulations for embedding internships in general education are said to have been set into motion, but results are yet to be seen. With collaborations, students can have the benefit of doing internships in the US online while studying in India only.

Last year, the implementation of NEP 2021 did not see any budget allocation. Perhaps the country missed an opportunity to implement the policy effectively, and we lost on time. As the budget was not allocated, improvement in the infrastructure could not progress.

The budget 2022 must support educational institutions in both the public and private sectors in their efforts to build the necessary infrastructure. Also, funding the costs of extra training and other skill development courses is pertinent, especially in the current times when students are worried about their career and future."

'Allocation of funds needed under NEP in Budget 2022'

ByPrateek Gujral, Principal Advisor (South Asia),Truman State University

‘Internationalisation’ is an important aspect of improving higher education in India. With National Education Policy 2020 in place, there is a huge potential to take the Indian higher education system to the international levels. The collaboration with foreign universities will bring in the best practices of global education in the country, leading Indian universities to improve their current education standards/ practices. This way, a greater number of Indian students will also have access to international exposure within their campuses at Indian institutions. This would also mean the entry of a more highly skilled workforce to meet the industry requirements in India.

To make these knowledge partnerships meaningful and more effective, it must include the democratisation of higher education in India, empowerment of Indian universities and those committed to internationalisation along greater sovereignty for these institutions to be creative in forming meaningful collaborations, and regulatory reforms to enable such engagements.

NEP 2020 has laid focus on blending liberal education with different domains to ensure well-rounded education along with the research programmes. Partnerships between international and Indian universities will certainly be a benefit in this aspect as well.

'Budget 2022 can power the implementation of NEP 2020'

ByManoj K Arora, Vice-Chancellor, BML Munjal University

"Many educational reforms have been proposed in the NEP 2020, both for schools and for higher education and a number of initiatives have been undertaken by the Government for the smooth implementation of NEP at different levels. Most schools and higher educational institutions have accepted these reforms in anticipation that these changes will bring in quality in education, by promoting greater flexibility in learning and teaching, institutional agility, seamless integration of school to university, innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit, research & development and a focus on teacher education.

All these can only be achieved if the education sector is allocated the budget as proposed in the NEP i.e., 6% of GDP. The proposed National Research Foundation needs to be created with adequate funds to promote research & development in the country and faculty are eagerly waiting for this initiative. The mandate of 9 science and technology mega clusters, announced in Budget 2021, may be expanded to include teaching and learning in addition to research and development. This will lead to the optimal use of faculty and laboratory resources, and also quality in pedagogy, given that the Academic Bank of Credits is in place. This may require incentivising faculty and staff, for which a separate endowment can be envisaged. Further, in order to bring in a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, a national entrepreneurship fund can be created to provide seed funding to budding entrepreneurs in early stage businesses.

Higher education institutions in the private sector cater for more than two-thirds of India's education. The not-for-profit institutions in this sector may be given tax exemptions similar to public institutions in the country. Undoubtedly, the future of education in the country is bright provided that the reforms mentioned in NEP 2020 are implemented in their true letter and spirit, which in turn will depend upon the availability of adequate funds, grants, endowments, incentives and tax reliefs to educational institutions and educationists. Budget 2022 can provide critical momentum to the implementation of NEP."

'Covid second wave changed the socio-economic dynamics of our country'

Dr V Kumar, Principal, Vogue Institute of Art & Design, a design institute in Bengaluru,

"Covid secondwave changed the socio-economic dynamics of our country. We lost around 60 - 70 per centof all India admissions suddenly due to the exorbitant rise in Covid cases in mid-2021. There should be a GST exemption for all capital and recurring purchases of goods and services at least for the next threeto fouryears which may be a minimum lean period required for recuperation.

Besides that, the staff and students group medical insurance as well as accident insurance premium borne by the Government would certainly give a sigh of relief to the institutions to a certain extent."

Making online education available in smaller cities

ByAbhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder of InterviewBit & Scaler,

"The pandemic proved to be a watershed in marking the shift to a largely, if not wholly digital mode of learning and instruction. However, there remains room for improvement, especially in terms of the quality of service delivery. While the transition to an online mode of education may have been relatively seamless for those with means and situated in metros and tier I cities, those less privileged struggled to keep pace. It is primarily due to the lack of sturdy internet infrastructure in tier 2 and 3 cities, requiring an urgent upgrade. With the rollout of 5G, the government will also need to ensure adequate 4G coverage is made available to learners across demographics. Therefore, it would be prudent in the upcoming Budget if the government allocates sufficient funds to improve internet infrastructure, especially in smaller cities, to facilitate learning and upskilling among aspirants.

In addition, the government's push to institutions urging them to relook and update their current curriculums is welcome. A more practical and effective move to address this lag might lie in engaging with e-learning platforms that can help equip learners with the industry's most relevant and sought after skills, thus elevating their employability for the long term.

In light of recent concerns around the ed-tech space, we are happy to say that we as a sector are collectively taking the onus of creating a standardised code of conduct to ensure our customers' continued confidence through transparent and ethical practices. These include but are not limited to fair and truth-led customer communication, selling claims validated by data and authentic proofs of performance for ed-tech products, among other caveats. We endeavour to prevent any instances of mis-selling or poor customer experiences that could cast any shadow of doubt on the capabilities and credibility of ed-tech platforms as a whole. We hope the government will recognise this and support our endeavours."

"Elimination of Income tax will give a massive boost to the lower middle class and middle-class"

By Harsh Bharwani, CEO and Managing Director of Jetking Infotrain,

“India gets only twoper centrevenue through Income Tax but causes massive liquidity crunch in the economy. The elimination of Income tax will give a massive boost to the lower middle class and middle-class section of the society. This in turn will give them a chance to invest more in their child’s education which will help in the upskilling of our country. Massive growth and development can be achieved if the youth of our country is educated and has employable skills Currently educational institutes have tax relief, the same should be continued.”

Enhance digital learning as the pandemic continues

By Anand Maheshwari, Managing Director, Allen Digital Pvt Ltd

"The third wave and the ongoing pandemic has aggravated various educational advancements that we see today. Be it the internet connectivity or the new age digital trends of virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence, the sector has seen massive changes. This is the new normal and adapting to the norms is what is expected out of a nation that prepares for its Union Budget Day.

As the positivity rate of Covid cases is increasing rapidly, schools, and colleges have decided to continue with online classes. The EdTech industry and all the other start-ups in the education sector are eagerly awaiting for the budget day as a lot depends on the financial support that’s offered by the Government in terms of tax exemptions and funding. Educational institutions are also looking forward to the agenda of NEP 2020.

As per the Union Budget of 2021, the education sector was allotted a total of Rs 93,224 crore. Out of which, Rs 54,873 was allotted for school education, and the rest for the higher education space. As the pandemic and the situation in terms of the educational model followed, hasn’t changed much, education experts are expecting at least a 10% higher budget allocation for the upcoming 2022-23 budget, since last year a major chunk of the funds were allocated to healthcare and emergency services.

The Government should provide a clearer breakdown of the budget and give due diligence to enhance internet connectivity and modern amenities. The quality of education cannot be compromised and hence classes should be accessible on 5G internet to all students irrespective of them belonging to tier 2, 3, and 4 cities.

Availability of electronic devices (PCs, laptops, smartphones) to every student holds a major role in enhancing digital learning. A relaxation on GST for EdTech platforms and developments in the digital infrastructure is a must for the effective implementation of NEP 20. Also by reducing the interest on education loans, the government can create a level-playing ground for all learners.

Another major concern that students have is the lack of diversity or representation in higher educational institutes. Inclusivity is still a stigma and measures need to be taken at a much larger scale for a change to be effectively visible.

Just as the previous year, the government should bring out plans and encourage 'atmanirbhar' education institutions to thrive. Their focus should be on skill-building and equipping students with industry-specific knowledge that will bring a deeper transformational shift to the education system.

Just as last year, expectations surrounding the Union Budget 2022 is highly dependent on the pandemic and the surge in positive cases. In such a restricted environment, digital learning is the only way forward and hence, educational experts are looking forward to a budget allocation that enhances implementation of technology in the educational sector."

'Skill-based training need of the hour'

By Adi Jain, Vice President, Swarrnim Startup & Innovation University

"The Indian education system has witnessed rapid digital transformation in the last two years. Progressive initiatives like NEP 2020 have placed our education system on the global platform. Skill based training has been the need of the hour as it enables job oriented education. Multiple exit and entry options for the students will address the issue of student dropout.

Having said that, massive investments are expected in development of infrastructure, digital access, learning materials, etc. Last year the budget allocation for the education sector was reduced by 6% from the previous year. In the 2022-2023 budget, a substantial increase in education budget along with a separate startup fund would be helpful to accommodate advancements in education.

A special fund allocated for the training of the educators would keep them abreast with the digital innovations in teaching pedagogy and go a long way in making NEP successful. The pandemic has created a financial crunch in every household, a subsidy on student loans would be a welcoming move. Moving forward, as the emphasis is on research and innovation, funding support to the universities for dedicated infrastructure and facilities and the startup fund for students' startups will encourage entrepreneurship."