JOIN USClass 1 girls in govt schools to get Rs two for each day's attendance
To encourage enrolment and attendance of girls in first standard in government schools, the State government has proposed to give Rs two for each day’s attendance to every student.
This is among various proposals that were made in the budget by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday for the development of primary and higher education sectors.
The government aims to provide better primary and higher education facilities for girls through integrated use of technology in imparting education in various education institutions in the state.
Remote sensing education programme to impart formal education in rural areas is one among them.
The government has also planned to strengthen the government schools by restructuring them as 'Shikshana Samarasya Vidya Kendra.' The budgetary allocation for primary education is almost the same as that announced by the previous BJP government in February this year. As much as Rs 15,680 crores has been set aside for primary education. In the earlier budget, the allocation was Rs 15,599 crore. The budget also has an assurance to fill up vacant teachers' posts in government primary and secondary schools.
New colleges
Mid-day meals programme will be made more effective by providing steam boilers to schools that have a strength of 500 students and more. For this, the government is setting aside Rs 10 crores. The government is planning to operationalise tele-education programme on pilot basis in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. There is also a proposal to establish digital knowledge centres at public libraries.
The government has proposed to establish an Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Dharwad for which the Centre has given in principle approval. The estimated capital expenditure of this is Rs 128 crore. The state government’s contribution to this would be about Rs 45 crore.
New government women’s colleges in 15 districts, where there have been no colleges exclusively for women till now, has been proposed by the government. As many as 25 government colleges will be readied with adequate infrastructure to make them eligible for academic autonomy by the University Grant's Commission. Each such college will get a grant of Rs two crore. The total outlay for higher education sector is Rs 3,243 crores as against Rs 3,067 crores announced by the BJP government.
The government has planned to establish a Higher Education Academy in Dharwad similar to the IAS Academy and the IPS Academy. The proposed Academy will train newly-recruited teachers and equip them with adequate skills to impart education on a par with global standards. Rani Chennamma University, Belgaum, Women University, Bijapur and Davangere University will get a one time grant of Rs five crore. Gulbarga will get new pharmacy college.
Trauma centres would be set up in Gulbarga Medical College and Mysore Medical College, the chief minister announced.
Lacks vision
“Though at the outset it seems like a lot of money, majority of it is going to salaries of employees and only a fraction of it will be retained for improving the quality of education. It is nice to know that this budget has more allocation than the previous outlay this year by the former government. However, one fears that there is no vision in this for education. It does not speak about Common School system; not a word on RTE has been mentioned. It does not reflect the Chief Minister's commitment to equity and equality in education. While the SSA speaks about 100 per cent enrolment and retention, the government has announced Rs two per child for attendance in Class 1, which fails to match with the larger aspiration in primary school education.” --Niranjan Aradhya, Fellow and Programme Head, Centre for Child and the Law, NLSIU