Despite the presence of the Right to Education Act and the disruption of learning in 2020, it is regrettable that education has been accorded a relatively minor rating in this year’s Union budget.

The funds are less than the allocation for learning made last year. Infrastructure and instruction are bound to be affected by the truncated budgetary allocation. It thus comes about that schools and higher education have been allocated Rs 93,224 crore, a striking cut from Rs 99,311 crore last year which was a decidedly wasted year in terms of advancement of learning from the preschool to the post-graduate and doctoral levels.

Indeed, education has suffered a cut in the budget for the first time in recent years. Particularly affected is the Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SSS), which was put in place for the implementation of the Right to Education Act.

The signal legislation guarantees schooling for children in the 8-14 age group. The foundation of learning may, therefore, suffer a jolt at the structure’s base. The allocation for the critical SSS has been reduced from last year’s Rs 38,750 crore to Rs 31,050 crore. The scheme, at any rate theoretically, covers the infrastructure of government schools.

It is all very well to curb the dropout rate among tribals and Dalits, many of whom leave school to work as child labourers and thus supplement the family’s income. Here too, however, the allocation has been cut from Rs 110 crore to Rs 1 crore. The impression thus conveyed is that the government is loath to spend on subaltern education.

This segment does need more than cycles to go to school or rice at Rs 2 a kg, albeit not always fit for consumption. Both are of course essential in terms of conveyance to school or to fight hunger and malnutrition among an exploited segment of the populace. Education of the mind is a different proposition altogether.

Yet it appears to have been accorded the short shrift in this year’s budget. If anything, there were valid grounds for hiking the allocation on education after a wasted year. And it has been wasted at all levels ~ schools, under-graduate colleges, and universities. A holistic perspective ought to have taken care of learning generally and this segment of the budget could well have expanded the outlay.

While the needs of healthcare have been underscored by the pandemic, and have been addressed by the Finance Minister to a substantial degree, those of education are as critical in the immediate context and greater in the future if we are to ensure that the demographic dividend is not squandered.

The fact that online learning has on the whole failed to deliver beyond those at the level of affluent subsistence, doesn’t appear to have been realised. Not wholly unrelated to the budget is the imperative to reopen schools, colleges and universities, not to forget the fee structure and the demand for partial waiver. The budget has neglected the child in search of learning.