General education has been given a lot of emphasis in Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac’s budget for 2017-18.
The State’s General Education Protection Mission, which has given a renewed thrust to education by focussing on improving academic standards and school infrastructure, will continue to be at the heart of education-related activities.
In addition to upgrading one school in each constituency as a centre of excellence that had been declared in last year’s budget, the government will earmark ₹500 crore for improving infrastructure in all schools where more than 1,000 students study and that have not been included in the centre of excellence scheme.
A maximum of ₹3 crore will be given to each school, depending on their master plan.
Special consideration will be given to seven heritage schools, including three aided schools which are over 200 years old.
Another scheme is aimed at primary and upper primary schools. An amount of ₹216 crore will be used for development of infrastructure.
The government also envisages a challenge fund to cover aided schools. A maximum of ₹1 crore or an amount equal to the investment made by management or school protection committee will be contributed by the government. An allocation of ₹50 crore has been made for this.
Over 2,500 posts of teachers will be sanctioned in the higher secondary sector. This is expected to solve to a large extent the problems that had arisen following sanctioning of new schools and batches in the past few years.
