The good, the bad and the uncertain
While it’s yet to be seen how the announcements in the Union Budget 2023 will unfold, India’s education and edtech space have shared their views on what they might entail for the future of the country.
Here’s what experts have to say on Budget 2023, its wins, losses, and more:
“The National Digital Library for children, initiated by the honourable Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is a testament to the government's commitment to modernising and advancing the economy. An ed-tech commitment was one area in which the budget lacked our expectations.” — Prateek Maheshwari, Co-Founder, PhysicsWallah.
“One urgent reform the education system needs is to address the digital divide. The budget, unfortunately, doesn’t emphasise much on it much. The budget speech has ignored another recurrent demand from the education sector, which is to remove or at least reduce GST on education services.”
— Pranay Aggarwal, Sociology faculty, IAS Gurukul.
“With the increased digital transformation of sectors utilising AI, Robotics, IoT, drone tech, the skilling of lakhs of youth through the Pradhan Mantri Kausal Vikas Yojana 4.0 would significantly open up job opportunities and catalyse growth across industries such as finance, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, and e-commerce, among others.”
— Krishna Kumar,
CEO, Learnbay.
“The plan to set up 30 Skill India International Centers highlights the importance of skill development. These centres would also increase their chances of finding employment opportunities abroad.”
— Rishabh Khanna, Founder & CEO of Suraasa.
“The Union Budget has missed yet another opportunity in addressing the growing inequality in the country. The allocation for key social sectors spending like health and education continued to remain abysmally low in the Union Budget.”
— Amitabh Behar,
CEO, Oxfam India.
“Foundational literacy and access to education provided through skilled teachers have been highlighted as a priority in the NEP 2020, for India to effectively prepare its growing young population for the future.”