In the recently announced Union Budget 2023, the education budget focuses on increasing literacy among children in an organic manner as well as building an ecosystem that equips youth with the right skills for the job market. Non-curricular books will be published in English and regional languages to encourage reading habits among children.
The National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust, and other sources will be encouraged to provide and replenish non-curricular titles in regional languages and English to physical libraries. This will also make up for the losses students suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, added finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
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Besides this, a national digital library for children will be set up with device-agnostic accessibility and states will be encouraged to build physical libraries at the panchayat level. To inculcate financial literacy, financial sector regulators and organizations will be encouraged to provide age-appropriate reading material to these libraries. NGOs will be roped in to identify sections with low literacy levels and works toward their betterment.
In a boost to increasing literacy among tribal children, the minister announced the recruitment of 38,800 teachers and support staff for 740 Eklavya Model Schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students in the next three years. Through District Institutes of Education and Training, teachers’ training will be revamped through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development, dipstick surveys, and ICT implementation.
Skilling and job creation
The finance minister said that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has been formulated to provide youths with employable skills and help with job creation. She announced that Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 will be launched to skill lakhs of youth within the next three years. On-job training, industry partnership, and alignment of courses with the needs of the industry will be emphasized.
The scheme will also cover new-age courses like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones, and soft skills. The Finance Minister said that for realizing the vision of “Make A-I in India and Make A-I work for India”, three centers of excellence for Artificial Intelligence will be set up in top educational institutions. Leading industry players will partner in conducting interdisciplinary research, and develop cutting-edge applications and scalable problem solutions in the areas of agriculture, health, and sustainable cities, which will galvanize an effective A-I ecosystem and nurture quality human resources in the field.
To skill the youth for international opportunities, 30 Skill India International Centres will be set up across different states. A unified Skill India Digital Platform will be launched to facilitate linking between job seekers and employers including MSMEs, and help access entrepreneurship schemes. In addition to this, the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme will provide a stipend to 47 lakh youth in three years through Direct Benefit Transfer.
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