The focus on education, particularly supplementing learning what was lost over the past two years owing to the pandemic, has attracted much interest from educationists. The Union Budget has proposed to extend the ‘one class-one TV channel’ programme of PM eVIDYA from 12 to 200 TV channels to provide education in regional languages for Classes I to XII.
With the State already taking lessons to the students’ homes, teachers’ bodies wonder how the new proposal would pan out.
“Tamil Nadu has been a pioneer in taking learning to the homes of students through Kalvi TV for the last two years. It is to be seen how this Budget announcement is taken forward. The State government had shown interest a while ago in starting separate channels for students of different age groups and this will be useful for English medium State board students as well,” said Patric Raymond, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Graduate Teachers’ Federation.
The non-revision of ceiling for income tax despite a petition to the Finance Ministry to raise to ₹10 lakh has disappointed the School Teachers’ Federation of India. It had sought standard annual deduction for IT payers and teachers to be capped at ₹50,000.
Expansion of TV channels under the PM eVidya scheme will greatly benefit students whose learning has taken a hit due to the pandemic, said S.N. Janardhanan, President of Tamil Nadu Vocational Teachers Kazhagam.
Independent education consultant believes the proposed digital university would encourage students to learn outside their syllabus. The decision to impart lessons through regional languages is another welcome move. The pandemic had set back families but the government had made no mention of reducing the burden due to education loan, he felt. Though the Budget is pushing for digital education there is no mention of improving infrastructure for the same in tier 2 and 3 cities and villages, he rued.
R. Ganapathi, chairperson of the IIT Madras Entrepreneurs’ Forum while welcoming the measures announced for start ups was disappointed that there was no announcement in the field of deep tech, which would enable India to set itself up as the next Silicon Valley.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned the contribution of International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru’s research in mental health. T.K. Srikanth, head of e-health research centre at the institute said the centre had been working with NIMHANS, National Health Mission, on eManas, a first of its kind software platform for mental health management. The Karnataka government had deployed it and is now monitoring the district mental health programme as well as psychiatric rehabilitative services. “As part of the tele-mental health network that NIMHANS will now help set up, IIITB will help integrate eManas with tele-health services, thus providing a comprehensive platform for mental healthcare that can scale up nationally,” he explained.
President of Narayana group of institutions K. Puneet hoped to hear more on the competitive framework for development of high quality e-content. “A collaborative effort leveraging the strengths of the government and private education sector can move the country towards more equitable educational solutions,” he felt.
Sathyan M., General Secretary of Association of Polytechnic College Teachers said, the Budget had addressed the needs of skilling in alignment with the emerging Industrial Standards 4.0. “Revamping of National Skill Qualification Framework is the most welcome move in the post pandemic scenario,” he said.
“A dedicated DESH stack e-portal for skilling, upskilling, and reskilling to enable online training and certification will enhance the learner’s skilling opportunity and fulfill the needs of the Industries particularly the MSME segment. . Establishment of Digital University would help digital ecosystem thrive,” he added.
