India’s much-awaited union budget was announced on 1 February 2017 and there are some changes in the Education sector. The budget has taken some interesting steps towards the enhancement of the quality of education in the rural regions of India and employment opportunities for the youth.
- Access to SWAYAM education portal online, which will be introduced with 350 online courses
- 3.5 crore youth to be trained under Sankalp programme launched by government
- National Testing Agency will be conducting major entrance examinations
- CBSE will be freed from conducting examinations and will focus majorly on academics
- Two new AIIMS institutes to be opened in Jharkhand and Gujarat. Steps will be taken to increase postgraduate seats for medical sciences in India.
- The Government will provide education through the digital platform in an effort to develop the country as an electronics hub
- The Budget will include ICT enabled learning, transformation and the focus will be on 3,479 educationally backward blocks.
- Specific UGC reforms will take place. Certain colleges will be granted autonomous status provided they meet accreditation and ranking criteria.
You may read the 10 major highlights of Budget 2017 for the education sector here.