Money less, PPP more in Budget 2012: Educators

With the Union Budget  due this week, each sector is drawing up the final draft of its wishlist for  Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Since education has never been the top agenda for the government, the sector is hoping for a strong private-public partnership to improve its quality rather than the government allocating more money for government-run schools.

According to the Census, over 32 percent of the 1.1-billion population is between the age group of 1 to 14 years, which means  the number of people in India needing primary and secondary education exceeds the entire population of the US!

Entrepreneurs in the education sector want  the government to enter into a partnership with the private sector to  help enhance the  technology and innovation of this sector and to enable it to acquire infrastructure. They believe that a policy must be framed for  free, fair and transparent participation and tax exemptions similar to that offered to the IT industry should be given to the Education sector too.

Although the  Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, government’s flagship programme for achievement of universalization of elementary education, has seen rising enrollment across India over the last decade, the quality of education has been poor.

Amol Arora the MD of Shemrock & Shemford Group of Schools  said “The government needs to involve the private sector in a more concrete manner - by subsidising loans to tax-breaks  to set up schools and institutions.”

According to Satya Narayanan R, founder, Career Launcher, public private partnership (PPP) model is best as it ensures efficiency driven management, whether it is in people, technology or innovation.

Watch the full report  on CNBC TV 18: Educators call for govt support, tax-breaks in Budget