BJP-Linked Student Body Slams Finance Secretary's Education Budget Comment

A comment by India's Finance Secretary TV Somanathan that "pushing more money into education will achieve nothing" has found an unlikely critic - the student body of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the country's ruling BJP.

In an interview with The Hindu newspaper last week, the top bureaucrat defended the central government's decisions in this year's budget and appeared to suggest that the country's quality of education will not improve even if the government invests more money.

"It's not quantity in education. It is quality, whether the teacher attends the school. Does he teach well? Does he make the child do homework? Does he not just pass the child whether the child has learned or not? These are not money. So actually pushing more money into education will achieve nothing," he said, arguing that India has more than enough school teachers.

More funding for higher education too will only be "a sop to the conscience of the intelligentsia that we are doing something for it" and what is required, he said, was to "depoliticise the university".

Criticising the remarks, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Friday said they are not only contrary to the National Education Policy 2020 but also "overlook the issues brought to the fore by the PM Narendra Modi with respect to the education sector".

In an apparent indictment of the BJP-led government at the centre, it called the enrolment numbers in India's higher education "lacklustre" and said budgetary spending on education still does not meet the 6 per cent recommendation of the country's new education policy.

"The Union Finance Secretary's comments on budgetary allocation for education in his interview to the daily reflect his lack of proper understanding on matters concerning education and are highly irresponsible," the ABVP said.

"Such remarks will only boost mistrust against the government in the education community, at a time when the entire country is anticipating substantial changes after the New Education Policy. The remarks made by the Union Finance Secretary regarding the education sector are insensitive and unfortunate," ABVP's National General Secretary Yagyavalkya Shukla said.

In the annual budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week, the education ministry was given Rs 1.12 lakh crore this year, up from last year's Rs 1.04 lakh crore - making for a mere 3 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product or GDP.