Staff Reporter :
The government has proposed to allocate Tk 31, 618 crore out of around Tk 295,100 crore in the education sector for 2015-16 fiscal year.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith placed the budget before the parliament on Thursday afternoon.
According to the minister, the allocation to the sector was meant to ensure quality education for all.
He said, “We are placing special emphasis on ensuring quality primary education and planning to expand primary education up to class VIII by 2018.”
He also said efforts are on to make all activities of primary education field administration IT-based.
Meanwhile, the finance minister has proposed raising value-added tax (VAT) on private education, which includes English medium schools and private engineering and medical colleges, in the 2015-16 fiscal.
AMA Muhith proposed an increase of VAT imposition on English medium schools from 7.5 percent to a “tolerable level” of 10 per cent.
Private medical and engineering colleges, which are currently out of purview of the VAT, will also come inside the “tolerable” 10 percent duty, according to Muhith’s proposal.
Citing that Tk 3 lakh crore budget is not sufficient for a country with a population of about 16 crore, Muhith said: “I have been telling for the past six years that our aim is to widen the size of the budget by increasing the national revenue.”
State revenue this year has been set at over Tk 2 lakh crore, which would generate through income tax, VAT, supplementary duty and import duty, he added.
The finance minister eyed on wider expansion of technical education and greater use of IT in education.
