Budget 2019: Education sector has high expectation from Nirmala Sitharaman; demands cut in GST

India holds an important place in the global education industry and this sector has huge expectations from budget 2019. There is still a lot of potential in the sector for further development in the education system. 

Achin Bhattacharyya, Founder & CEO, Notebook told Zee Business online, "India will be able to reap demographic dividend from her human capital only if urgent measures are taken in improving the quality of school education in which we fare poorly even in comparison to other BRICS and SAARC countries, as of 2016 India had the second lowest score for quality education (66 out of a possible 100)."

Bhattacharyya added, "Class rooms need to be digitised on mass scale to ensure access to quality education for one and all, stress need to be given on developing Massive open online courses ( MOOC) on PPP model which is the only practical way to optimise teaching resources so as to benefit each child in the country. Diksha (The training portal of the teachers) needs to be upgraded."

He also said, "Reducing GST on education sector(Currently taxed at 18 percent ) substantially will make education more affordable to a much larger mass and also help in attracting more FDI into this sector, also focused skill development initiatives ( to increase employment) are need of the day."

In January this year former Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Satya Pal Singh said in Parliament that there are more than 90,000 schools with only single teacher teaching in them at the primary and secondary level combined, as per the data available with the government, these calls for substantial investment in building infrastructure for developing education by not only enhancing facilities but also by recruiting and training teachers to maintain better Pupil Teacher ratio (PTR) and impart quality education.