Expenditure on Education in India: A Short Note
1.
The importance of education in economic development is accepted across
the ideological divide in economic theory and policymaking. However,
what remains common to the recent phase of market-oriented reforms in
India and the earlier phase of state-led development planning is the
failure to ensure access to basic education for the masses. The limited
spread of literacy and elementary education till date along with a miniscule
proportion of the population having access to higher education provides
a pathetic spectacle, especially in the backdrop of tall claims regarding
high rates of economic growth and technological advances achieved during
the phase of economic liberalization. The post-liberalization period
has actually witnessed a gradual withdrawal of the state from the sphere
of education, adversely affecting both the spread as well as the quality
of education in the country. The advent of the BJP-led government at
the Centre in 1998 further witnessed the consolidation of two regressive
trends in Indian education: motivated attempts to subvert its secular
and democratic character; and reckless commercialization, particularly
of higher education.
2.
Following the defeat of the BJP-led government in the recently concluded
Lok Sabha elections, a great deal of enthusiasm to reverse the process
of communalization of education seems to have been generated within
the policy circles. It needs to be understood, however, that the drive
towards such 'detoxification' would remain half-hearted at best, if
larger questions regarding the role of the state in education remain
unattended. For instance, even if the communally tampered textbooks
of the NCERT are replaced by secular ones, the number of schools which
would adhere to such curriculum is too scarce to be able to outcompete,
let alone totally replace, the enormous apparatus of school education
put in place by the RSS and its affiliates. Similarly, no matter how
honestly the purging of RSS hacks from the state-run institutions of
higher learning is carried out, the passage of the Private Universities
Bill or even the continuance of the current dubious practice of granting
deemed university status to all and sundry by the UGC, would pave the
way for their eventual rehabilitation. A genuine effort to reverse the
process of communalization of education would therefore imply reinventing
the vital role of the state in this sphere. That of course cannot be
achieved without making a departure from the marketization/commoditization
paradigm, the scope for which has been provided by the commitment to
spend 6% of GDP on education made in the Common Minimum Programme of
the UPA government.
3. Table 1 below shows the combined expenditure of the Central and State
governments on education as a percentage of GDP in the recent years.
It can be easily observed that the total state expenditure on education
in the country has hovered around 3% of GDP, far below the 6% of GDP
benchmark set by the Kothari Commission way back in 1968.
Table
1 |
||
Year |
Central
and State Governments' Combined Expenditure on Education as a
percentage of GDP |
|
1999-00 |
3.3 |
|
2000-01 |
3.1 |
|
2001-02* |
3.1 |
|
2002-03** |
3.1 |
|
Source:
Economic Survey, 2002-03. |
||
Notes:
* Revised Estimate, ** Budget Estimate. |
||
The inadequacy of resources has stemmed primarily from the unwillingness of the Central government to undertake adequate expenditure on education. Table 2 amply demonstrates the negligible proportion of resources spent for education through Central Budgets in recent years, with the percentage of expenditure on education never exceeding 2.5% of total budgetary expenditure.
Table
2 |
||
Year |
Expenditure
on Education as percentage of TotalCentral Budgetary Expenditure |
|
1999-00* |
2.41 |
|
2000-01* |
2.49 |
|
2001-02* |
2.21 |
|
2002-03** |
2.39 |
|
Source:
Calculated from Expenditure Budget and Demand for Grants, various years. |
||
Notes:
* Revised Estimate; ** Budget Estimate |
||
The larger burden of expenditure on education is already being borne
by the State governments, which are almost without exception caught
up in a fiscal mess, thanks to the squeeze on transfer payments to the
States and higher interest rates charged on their borrowings. It follows
therefore that the promise of spending 6% of GDP on education contained
in the Common Minimum Programme can only be achieved through a stepping
up of Central government expenditure on education.
4. Despite the fact that the proportion of Central Budget expenditure
on education did not experience any increase during its tenure, the
NDA government proclaimed to have 'prioritized' elementary education
by allocating a greater proportion of resources towards it. This so-called
'prioritization' can be seen from Table 3 where there is increase in
the proportion of total budgetary allocation on education spent on elementary
education (from 39% in 1999-00 to 43.96% in 2002-03) with a concomitant
fall in the proportion of expenditure on university and higher education
(from 29.58% in 1999-00 to 17.34% in 2002-03).
Table
3 |
||
Year |
Expenditure
on Elementary Education as percentage of Total Budgetary Expenditure
on Education |
Expenditure
on University and Higher Education as percentage of Total Budgetary
Expenditure on Education |
1999-00* |
39.00 |
29.58 |
2000-01* |
37.74 |
31.02 |
2001-02* |
44.32 |
20.45 |
2002-03** |
43.96 |
17.34 |
Source:
Economic Survey, 2002-03. |
||
Notes:
* Revised Estimate, ** Budget Estimate. |
||
However, this counterpoising of elementary and higher education, in the name of 'prioritizing' the former, is nothing but an apology for not undertaking adequate expenditure in either of the two levels. This becomes evident from Table 4 that shows only a marginal increase in the expenditure on elementary education as a proportion of total budgetary expenditure in the recent years (0.94% in 1999-00 to 1.05% in 2002-03), which calls the bluff as far as 'prioritization' of elementary education is concerned, while there is a significant fall in the expenditure on university and higher education as a proportion of total budgetary expenditure (0.71% in 1999-00 to 0.41% in 2002-03).
Table
4 |
||
Year |
Expenditure
on Elementary Education as percentage of Total Budgetary Expenditure |
Expenditure
on University and Higher Education as percentage of Total Budgetary
Expenditure |
1999-00* |
0.94 |
0.71 |
2000-01* |
0.94 |
0.77
|
2001-02* |
0.98 |
0.45 |
2002-03** |
1.05 |
0.41 |
Source:
Calculated from Expenditure Budget and Demand for Grants, various years. |
||
Notes:
* Revised Estimate; ** Budget Estimate |
||
Such
diversionary tactics need to be strictly avoided. The Union government
should accept the fact that Central Budgetary allocation on education
is abysmally low for all levels and expenditure needs to be stepped
up for elementary as well as higher education.
5. Free and compulsory education was made a Fundamental Right for all
children in the age-group of 6-14 years through the 86th Amendment of
the Constitution enacted in December 2002. The law suffers from the
lacuna that the children below six years of age have been excluded from
its purview. Moreover, the constitutional obligation towards free and
compulsory education has been shifted from the State to the parents/guardians
by making it their Fundamental Duty under Article 51A (k) to 'provide
opportunities for education' to their children in the 6-14 age group.
While setting these anomalies right remains to be an important objective,
what should be of immediate concern is the financial commitment that
this legislation entails. The Tapas Majumdar Committee appointed by
the government had suggested a required expenditure of around Rs. 1.37
lakh crores over a ten year time frame (1998-2007) to bring all the
children in the 6-14 age group under the purview of school education
by 2008. Contributing its bit to the 'India Shining' campaign on the
eve of the elections, the Ministry of Human Resource Development had
publicly claimed through media advertisements that 3 crores out-of-school
children were already brought back to school after spending Rs. 16,000
crores under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. It amounted to achieving 60%
of the target in universalizing elementary education (i.e. 3 crores
out of the estimated 5 crores out-of-school children brought back to
school) by spending only 0.11% of the total expenditure of Rs. 1,36,922
crores estimated by the Tapas Majumdar Committee. This was nothing but
a perfidious claim being made by the NDA government in order to conceal
its sheer lack of commitment towards universalizing elementary education.
6. The budget estimates for total expenditure on education in the interim
budget placed by the NDA government this year was Rs. 11,062 crores,
which amounted to around 2.41% of total budgetary expenditure. Out of
this, the budget estimates for elementary education stood at Rs. 6004
crores. The Tapas Majumdar Committee on the other hand had suggested
an expenditure of Rs. 17,000 crores in 2004-05 for meeting the requirements
of universal school education alone. The gap between the requirement
and what the government is willing to spend is so large as to make a
mockery of the goal of universal school education. It is here that the
UPA government has to make a decisive break from its predecessor. And
it would do well to remember that the mobilization of adequate resources
for universal elementary education would necessarily involve taxation
of the rich and privileged. A cess on corporate taxes, personal income
tax and customs duties on luxury imports, to mobilize additional resources
for the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan can be a good beginning as far as the first
budget of the UPA government is concerned.