Staff Reporter :
Though the budget allocation for the entire education sector has been increased in the current FY 2022-23, in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) it has not been what should have been.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday proposed an allocation of Tk 81,449 crore for the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Secondary and Higher Education Division, and Technical and Madrasa Education Division, for the FY 2022-23. It was Tk 71,954 crore in the outgoing fiscal year.
On the one hand, in terms of GDP, the total allocation for the education sector is 1.83 percent, while it was 2.08 percent in the current budget.
For the modernisation of education, the UNESCO has a recommendation of spending six percent of the total GDP for the education sector. But the country’s spending in this sector is still one third of the GDP.
The Finance minister allocated Tk 31,761 crore for the Primary and Mass Education Ministry, Tk 39,961 crore for Secondary and Higher Education Division and Tk 9,727 crore for Technical and Madrasa Education Division.
However, the government has given in the proposed budget a sum of Tk 6,78,064 crore with a GDP target 7.5 percent.
Out of the total budget, education sector has a portion of 12.01 percent, while it was 11.91 percent in the outgoing budget.
Even the Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni on Thursday in a function in the capital said that the budgetary allocation for the education sector should be six percent of the total GDP.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister in the parliament said the primary education is the foundation of education and the government has taken various steps to modernise the primary education.
In his budget speech, he said, “Our education programme was disrupted since the first week of March 2020 due to the spread of coronovirus infection. However, the government took various steps to continue the academic schedule by keeping the education activities free from the negative effects of the pandemic.”
He also said that the government is working to ensure 100 percent enrollment at primary level, to feed the school students, meet daily nutritional needs, curb dropout rate, increase completion rate of primary education cycle, increase regular attendance rate of enrolled children and improve quality of primary education. He also said that new infrastructure has been set up and the teachers have been appointed to enhance the quality of education as a whole.
Considering the importance of primary education, increasing literacy rate, he proposed Tk. 31,761 crore for primary and mass education, which was Tk. 26,314 crore in FY 2021-2022.
About the secondary and higher education, Finance Minister said, the government is continuing its efforts through multifarious activities like scaling up the rate of education at the secondary level, bringing gender equality in education, implementing academic programmes consisting of general, science and technology-based education and training.
In his budget speech, the minister said, the government has given emphasis on research and science education.
To meet the challenge of Fourth Industrial Revolution, he said, the government will set up specialised labs at every university of the country and work is underway to set up 57 such specialised labs.
He proposed the allocation of Tk. 39,961 crore for the secondary and higher education sector in the budget for next FY 2022- 2023 which was Tk. 36,487 crore in the outgoing fiscal year.
To take advantage of the demographic dividend of the country, the government is laying emphasis on the quality technical and vocational education, Finance Minister said.
He also said that the enrollment rate in technical education, which was less than 1.0 percent 12 years ago, is now 17.25 percent.
In order to build the skilled, the Finance Minister said, the government has formulated ‘Blended Education Master Plan’ that will facilitate building a skilled workforce to address the current situation of pandemic and the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
He also said, the government has taken steps to play a role in the socio- economic development of the country through overall improvement of Madrasa education.
Considering it, he proposed to allocate Tk. 9,727 crore for technical and Madrasa education in the budget for fiscal year 2022-2023 which was Tk. 9,153 crore in fiscal year 2021-2022.
