Education budget 2022 from better digital infrastructure to better education loans, here's what experts want

Education Budget 2022: From better digital
infrastructure to better education loans, here's
what experts want
Here's what education experts from various fields in India
want from the Education Budget 2022. From better digital
infrastructure to better education loans, experts are calling
out for means to better quality education considering the
effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will deliver her
fourth budget speech on February 1, 11 am. The Union Budget will
be released while India is battling the third wave of Covid-19. The
first half of the Budget session will take place from February 2 to 11,
while the second half will be from March 14 to April 8.The Budget
session will begin on January 31 with President Ram Nath's Kovind
addressing both Houses of the Parliament, following which
Sitharaman will table the economic survey. Budget 2022 will be
paperless like in the past.

The Education Budget 2022 is eagerly awaited as never before in
modern history has worldwide education been as disrupted due to
Covid-19.
As different waves of Covid-19 have been affecting the population,
schools have barely been able to reopen for physical classes since
they had closed in the first wave of Covid-19 back in March 2020.
Approximately 1.5 million schools and 1.4 million ECD/Anganwadi
centres were closed during this period. According to Unicef’s study,
consequently nearly 247 million children could not go to school for
more than a year.
Here is what experts want this year as their pre-Budget
expectations in education.
Larger budget allocation for education
The education budget allocation last year was Rs. 93,223 crores,
which was reduced by 6% as compared to the year before. The
biggest ask from education experts this year is an increase in the
overall allocation.

Dr Mona Lisa Bal, Chairperson, KIIT International School:
Budgetary allocations need to be made for faster implementation of
NEP 2020 which has the potential to change our education system
for the better. 6 - 10% of the GDP should be allocated towards
education.
Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer|Mettl:
A progressive country needs at least 6% of GDP to be spent on
Education. India has been averaging between 2 and 3 % between
the years 2014 to 2019. The biggest hit seems to be the National
Education Mission (Samagra Shiksha) which has seen a
whopping 48% reduction
Naman Jain, Education Expert and Director, Silverline
Prestige School, Ghaziabad:
The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) emphasises the
need for at least 6% of the total budget to be allocated to education
with financial support for critical components of education such as
provision of adequate teachers, teacher training, etc.
Better digital infrastructure

Covid-19 exposed India to how bad the digital divide is in our
country and we need to bridge it urgently. Millions were unable to
go to schools and also lacked access to mobiles, laptops or steady
internet connectivity to continue online education.
While thousands of remote and rural schools remained shut simply
because of lack of means to teach and the Covid-19 safety protocols,
many students traipsed through forests, climbed mountains and sat
on the roadside to get internet access on smartphones.
Dhuwarakha Sriram, Chief of Generation Unlimited
(YuWaah) and Youth Development and Partnerships at
UNICEF:
Nearly 4% of our population in rural areas has access to computers
compared to 23% in urban areas (Source: 2020 NSO Report on
Education).
As the pandemic has resulted in a higher pace of technological
advances and rapid shift to online learning, addressing digital
inequality and supporting young people to gain relevant skills of
today's job market and youth entrepreneurship opportunities
should be top priorities for the upcoming Union Budget 2022.
PC Chhabra- Executive Director, Sanskriti University:
Due to the pandemic, all the students are studying from home.
Having a laptop is the minimum requirement for the students and
teachers to either record or impart live instructions.
If the government can provide subsidised access to laptops for
students and teachers it can boost the quality of online education.To
increase connectivity, the government should announce

Jerold Chagas Pereira - Executive Director and CEO,
mPowerO:
Incentives need to be announced for schools in Tier II, III and IV
categories to upgrade to smart classrooms with digital learning
management tools.
Nikhil Barshikar, Founder and MD of Imarticus Learning:
There is a huge surge in the number of students opting for
e-learning courses, especially in tier II cities; the challenge arises in
creating a stable digital infrastructure for such cities.
RCM Reddy, MD and CEO, Schoolnet India Ltd:
Measures are needed to strengthen the digital capability of each
school, owing to the great digital divide that still exists, on a mission
mode.
Such a digital initiative should be holistic including access to the
internet, affordable and appropriate devices, projectors, teacher
training in digital pedagogy, curriculum centric multimedia content,
adaptive assessments, and analytics to track progress.
Population Foundation of India:
More budget needs to be allocated towards Samagra Shiksha
Abhiyan or the National Education Mission to help bridge the
digital divide in education for adolescent girls and create equal
opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes.
Prateek Shukla, co- founder and CEO, Masai School:
Online learning is not possible if you don't have access to
high-speed internet connection without which it is not possible to
do online classes

Measures are needed to strengthen the digital capability of each
school, owing to the great digital divide that still exists, on a mission
mode.
Such a digital initiative should be holistic including access to the
internet, affordable and appropriate devices, projectors, teacher
training in digital pedagogy, curriculum centric multimedia content,
adaptive assessments, and analytics to track progress.
Aakash Chaudhry, Managing Director, Aakash
Educational Services Limited (AESL):
With Covid completely changing the dynamics of classroom
education, we expect there to be a great amount of focus on online
education and its infrastructure, especially in the Tier 2,3 cities, in
the Budget.
The Government also needs to support telecom companies so that
they develop better infrastructure, internet connectivity, access to
modern devices, ensuring last-mile delivery, quality guidance to the
underserved who have been left behind owing to the digital divide.
Niru Agarwal, Trustee, Greenwood High International
School, Bangalore:
We need to digitally connect all schools in the country and also
ensure a smooth glitch-free working of the digital infra post its
implementation.
Additionally, the government should announce programmes to
foster better Internet connectivity infrastructure across the country
that ensure last-mile connectivity.
Also, the creation of tech hubs, from where quality vernacular
content can be disseminated is the need of the hour.

The government must also allocate funds for technological
upgradation of educational institutions in rural areas so that the
education of students studying in these institutions does not get
affected due to any other pandemic in the future.
Dr Mona Lisa Bal, Chairperson, KIIT International
School:
According to UNESCO’s state Education Report 2021, the
availability of computing equipment in schools in India has been
found to be only 22% and only 19% out of them have an internet
facility.
The development of digital infrastructure did not receive due
consideration in last year’s budget and hence, it is imperative to
allocate sufficient funds for the development of a robust and
improved digital infrastructure.
The future needs hybrid, online, blended, flipped, discovery,
experiential and various other learning methods. The upcoming
budget should also support and encourage development of new
education technologies and innovations.
Ruchir Arora, Co-Founder and CEO, CollegeDekho:
Virtual classes in colleges have become a necessity due to Covid-19
and the infrastructure required for it has increased the cost incurred
by the students even further.
Many students in India don’t have access to a laptop or a stable
internet connection. There needs to be a focus on ensuring that the
required infrastructure is developed adequately and is available to
everyone.

Nitin Vijay, Founder and MD, Motion Education, Kota,
Rajasthan:
Today, deeper internet penetration has helped institutions to take
classrooms to the remotest part of the country that is helping the
underprivileged.
There is an urgent need to develop infrastructures for better
connectivity and access to mobile devices or computers to bridge
the digital divide.
Sharad Bansal, Co- Founder, Tinkerly:
Due to Covid-19, we saw the demand-supply gap and it is crucial to
bridge the gap by providing internet connectivity, better
infrastructure in tier 3 and tier 4 cities, and running schemes like
One student One laptop, scholarships should be provided for
outstanding performances.
Rajeev Tiwari, Co-founder, STEMROBO Technologies:
The emphasis should be on programmes to improve internet
connectivity infrastructure across the country, ensuring last-mile
connectivity, inexpensive 5G devices, and, most crucially, assisting
e-learning players with a solid e-learning infrastructure.
Dr. Dishan Kamdar, Vice-Chancellor, FLAME University:
A fund allocation for the advancement in technology infrastructure
to help enable institutes to invest in the latest technology tools,
software, and high-speed connectivity will surely deliver a seamless
high-quality learning experience to their students.

Avinash Kumar, Founder, Credence:
With a considerable shift to virtual or online education models,
ensuring access to better technology and improved e-Learning
infrastructure should be prioritised to reduce the digital divide in
smaller towns and cities.
Overall, we are hopeful that the government relaxes the education
infrastructure loans and expands the income tax provision under
Section 80C for deduction of education expenses.
Vaibhav Singh, Co-Founder, Leap Scholar:
The 2022 budget is expected to have a higher focus on the edtech
sector as a whole, with significant investments to enhance greater
access to robust and improved digital infrastructure.
Dr Silpi Sahoo, Chairperson, SAI International Education
Group:
Education should reach each corner and the remotest of areas of
India. The pandemic showed a mirror that we need to have a robust
and improved digital infrastructure to reduce the digital divide of
rural and urban.
AK Srikanth, CEO, KLAY:
To overcome the digital divide further on, a large allocation towards
IT and Bandwidth infrastructure needs to be subsidised for students
and educational institutions for a higher degree of usage.

Reduced GST for edtech
The pandemic has changed the way India studies and while edtech
companies were slowly picking up pace even before Covid-19 struck,
now, they have become an essential part of education and skill
development. A need has therefore arisen to cut down the GST on
edtech platforms.
Karun Tadepalli, CEO and Co-founder, byteXL:
Currently, subscriptions to EdTech platforms attract 18% GST. The
Government in this Union Budget must unburden a load of
excessive taxes by abolishing GST on eLearning.
Madhu Agrawal, Co-founder of Clever Harvey:
One of the key areas of concern for all edtech companies is the
disparity in the GST treatment of print educational solutions vs
digital educational solutions. For example, a textbook is charged 5%
GST whereas the same book in an online format is charged 18% GST

Sharad Bansal, Co- Founder, Tinkerly
With the country witnessing the 3rd wave of Covid, online classes
have become mainstream now but they currently come under 18%
GST slab. Relaxation on GST for online classes and STEM toys will
encourage more enrollments of interested students.
Ajoy Thomas, VP and Business Head, TeamLease Services:
The Union Budget should cover certain benefits for startups, such
as reduced taxes for companies with a turnover less than INR 10
Crores, and complete exemption from taxes for a duration of 3 years
and on profits earned during the first 5 years, the budget should be
benefitting the overall startup ecosystem.
Dr. Chenraj Roychand, Founder Chairman, JAIN Group:
In the recent past, supplementary education by private institutes
had been categorised under Educational Services and taxed at 18%
under the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
This year we expect that the government will reduce this to 5%, and
help to ease pressure on particularly those students who come from
lower and middle-class families.
Achin Bhattacharyya, CEO and Founder, Notebook:
Long term tax exemption and funding support to ed-tech firms will
go a long way towards ensuring that the sector is able to attract and
retain quality talent who are educators by choice and not by chance.
A reduction in the tax rate for ed-tech businesses might give even
more momentum and encourage further investment, as the current
GST rate of 18% is posing a barrier to these new businesses reaching
their full potential. Lowering it to around 5% will do the good.

Prateek Bhargava, Founder and CEO, Mindler
From an ed-tech sector perspective I expect the government to also
reduce the GST rate on ed-tech solutions which will make these
solutions more accessible to students and parents in these difficult
times.
Himanshu Tyagi, CEO and Founder of Digikull:
The government should revisit the 18% GST on skilling, which is
very demotivating for the students who want to gain skill-related
education.
Vaibhav Singh, Co-Founder, Leap Scholar:
The GST for educational services is expected to be brought down to
5% from the existing 18%, to increase accessibility and feasibility for
students from lower and middle-class families.
Dr Silpi Sahoo, Chairperson, SAI International Education
Group:
Currently, the GST rate which is applied on education is categorised
under Education Services and hence 18% GST is levied, we expect
the Government to revise the GST rate and reduce it to 5%.
Budget Thoughts 2022 - AK Srikanth, CEO, KLAY:
In times when many education players had to close down their
businesses, it is important that the investments into the Education
sector increase and a lower GST of 5% or less from the current 18%
is made, which will additionally attract potential investors.

Teacher training
The pandemic has forced Indian teachers to adapt to digital
teaching methods in record time. But now, we need to implement
better teacher training programmes so they can be made adept with
the various technologies available in the education field.
Prateek Shukla, co- founder and CEO Masai School:
Our teaching methods have not evolved to suit the digital medium. I
don't think that writing on a black board on a small mobile screen is
the best way for our young minds to learn.
We need to enable them with the internet and develop resources for
teachers to take classes on the phone efficiently.
Teacher training, a fresh initiative has crawled to 120 Cr, against an
allocation of 250 Cr.

Surabhi Goel, CEO, Aditya Birla Education Academy,
Aditya Birla World Academy:
We need a robust program to train teachers on how they can work
with students to bring them at par with the expected learning levels
of their grade.
The Government must allow partnerships between private players
to be a part of educational governing bodies to ensure a greater
reach for upskilling programmes in the government sector for
teachers.
Along with this, reduction in the GST slab for teacher training will
help make these trainings accessible to all teachers.
Niru Agarwal, Trustee, Greenwood High International
School, Bangalore:
Teachers need to be trained to use new-age teaching aids and tools.
As quality education holds the key to inclusive growth in India, the
upcoming budget must promote the perfect amalgamation of digital
and traditional education.
Public private partnership towards strengthening school education
through teacher training and capacity building for education
delivery can transform the system bringing it more in line for future
requirements.
Technical and soft skills training should be made mandatory for
teachers. They should be trained to teach and maintain the
engagement of the students in online classes.

As a country with the highest number of school-goers in the world,
we need to invest heavily in teachers training and workshops.
Skill development and job creation
Employment took a bad hit due to the pandemic and skill
development is now more of a buzzword than ever before.
Not only do we need to bridge the digital divide, we also need to
make sure students and young professionals in remote locations
and Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities have subsidised access to online learning
platforms so they can build the skills they need for future jobs.
The aim should be to impart employable, digital, and flexible skills
with the focus on skilling, reskilling, and upskilling if we want our
youth to participate in a data-driven digital economy.

A budget of 3000 Cr is just too less to have any perceptible impact
on Skill development for every industry. This year India is spending
2300r, nearly 200 Cr less than the allocated budget. Pure skill
development initiatives are expected to spend 1700 Cr 200 Cr less
than last year.
New job roles created in ML/ AI, Data Sciences, Full Stack, Dev ops,
etc. across the Software development cycle. AI and automation,
earlier touted as a death blow to the people-centric India IT model
came unfounded, newer technologies have been additive to job
creation.
An era of job scarcity to people is underway. People who can
up-skill to be relevant in the changing parading will be scarce and
be at a premium. Every company and individual has to think about
re-learning.
Narayan Mahadevan, Founder, BridgeLabz:
The government needs to recognize and encourage startups to not
only focus on skill development but also to ensure the job is 100%
guaranteed.
We would also like the Government to firstly recognize Skill-to-Job
as a separate category and encourage Start-up with some schemes
or tax rebates to employ such fresh graduates such as being done by
the Singapore government.
Nitin Vijay, Founder and MD, Motion Education, Kota,
Rajasthan:
We expect that the government will make announcements that will
encourage online learning especially on models that will focus on
learning of new-age skills and employability.We are living in a
digital era and learning models that focus on concepts like AI, VR,
Machine learning should also remain in focus.

Currently only schools can get grants for Atal Tinkering Labs, this
should be extended to private learning centres and independent
educators so that community driven Tinkering Labs can be
established.
Prateek Shukla, co- founder and CEO Masai School:
We need to also look at schemes for skilling our youth that are
outside of the education system and make them eligible for
employment opportunities currently there.
Private universities are now working with the government in the US
to move to an ISA (Income Share Agreement) model as an
alternative to education loans. This is something we need to focus
on too when it comes to promoting skilling in India.
Communication and interpersonal skills, cognitive abilities, and
logical thinking need to come to the forefront in K-12 education.
Wherever we are seeing this implemented, like in some states in
India, we are seeing those students perform better.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Vice Chancellor, World University of
Design:
Any serious effort about creating employment opportunities would
require a shift in the focus on encouraging creativity along with the
stress on sciences. This is because unprecedented changes are
taking place and newer opportunities are emerging.
In South Korea they have formed a Ministry for Future, Sciences
and Creativity. This underlines the important role that design plays
there in transforming science into culture.
The government mission should be to make design, creativity and
innovation as important to the school curriculum as maths and

English, strengthen higher education institutions in the field of
design so that in the coming two decades we produce a whole new
generation of home-grown companies and unicorns.
Lohit Bhatia, President of Workforce Management, Quess
Corp:
Online upskilling needs to be the primary focus going forward, as
most skill centres have remained non-functional due to Covid-19 in
the last 22 months.
The Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) Plan
Scheme which had been designed to incentivise employers for
generation of new employment should be immediately brought back
allowing EPFO grants for the first 3 years for all first time UAN
generators.
Extension of benefits offered in Section 80JJAA of the Income Tax
Act which supports job creation.
Rachit Agrawal, Co-founder and Director of AdmitKard:
There should be greater emphasis on skills and language training in
order to make Indian youth ready for the global economy, and
encouraging more Indians to migrate for work or studies,"
Ravi Panchanadan, MD andCEO, Manipal Global
Education Services (MaGE):
We need to upskill individuals creating a first-day job-ready
workforce to boost the future employment quotient of our country.

Improving the Gross Enrollment Ratio
The pandemic has led to a huge learning gap and a large number of
dropouts. The Education Budget needs to tackle this issue such that
India can be well on the path of achieving the target 50% GER as
stated in the NEP.
AK Srikanth, CEO, KLAY:
The pandemic has hit the Gross Enrolment Ratio unfavourably
which was hovering around the 27% mark in 2018-19.
In order to realise 50% by 2030, it is important that we accelerate
and compensate for the lost years due to the pandemic.
Ruchir Arora, Co-Founder and CEO, CollegeDekho:
Quality education is a key driver for a nation’s economy and we
want the upcoming budget to focus on improving the Gross
Enrollment Ratio (GER)

Our expectation is that the Union Budget should further drive
policies around Innovation, Creativity and Experiential Learning.
NITI Aayog’s flagship Project Atal Tinkering Labs which was setup
in 2016 has been making a great impact in this regard, the need is to
further strengthen this project and link it learning outcomes in
STEM, Experiential Learning, AI and Coding.
At the K-12 level, we must incorporate Technology-Oriented
Curriculum Delivery, which is based on technique and pedagogy
aligned with the demands of 21st Century Skills.
Education loans at lower rates
Experts are calling for various subsidies and scholarships due to the
massive financial hit to the common man caused by the pandemic
that trickles down to how much parents can afford to give to their
kids in the field of education.

Sourabh Gupta, Founder and Design Dean, The Design
Village Noida
The finance ministry along with state governments should look at
initiatives that will further help students whose families have been
affected with scholarships and flexible and low interest education
loans.
PC Chhabra- Executive Director, Sanskriti University:
We look forward to seeing a massive focus towards lessening the
financial burden on parents and students to reduce the interest on
education loans.
This will help students to aspire for higher education without
getting under economic stress.
Dr. Dishan Kamdar, Vice-Chancellor, FLAME University
The Government could also develop an education loan scheme for
the ease in accessibility, disbursement and repayment terms which
will support students from the lesser privileged strata and the
deeper pockets of the country to benefit from.
Himanshu Tyagi, CEO and Founder of Digikull:
The loans related to education must be provided for lower interest
rates.
Dr Mona Lisa Bal, Chairperson, KIIT International School
Reduction of interest rates on education loans is also required so
that students aspiring for higher education are not financially
burdened.

Sumeet Jain, Co-founder, Yocket, an Edtech startup:
With very low NPAs in education loans, the government needs to
ensure that loans above 20Ls also come under priority. The
Government could also provide some interest waiver (or subsidy)
schemes which can provide more access to students for funds.
There should be a good number of scholarships (or interest-free
loans) for foreign education as well. A well-planned scheme can go a
long way in getting a huge population to compete on a global level.
Prof (Dr.) YSR Murthy, Founding Vice-Chancellor, RV
University, Bengaluru
We would want the government to set up a scholarship to be named
‘The Indian Corporate Higher Education Scholarship’ with a corpus
of Rs.1,000 crores contributed by the top 1000 corporations of the
country. This should be run by an eminent independent board.
Better research and development facilities

Research facilities in India are not up to the mark as compared to
top universities abroad. More budget allocation is needed in this
area so Indian innovation can be the harbinger of change and
development in the nation.
Prof. Manoj K Arora, Vice Chancellor, BML Munjal
University (BMU):
The proposed National Research Foundation needs to be created
with adequate funds to promote research and development in the
country and faculty are eagerly waiting for this initiative.
The mandate of 9 science and technology mega clusters, announced
in Budget 2021, may be expanded to include teaching and learning
in addition to research and development.
This will lead to the optimal use of faculty and laboratory resources,
and also quality in pedagogy, given that the Academic Bank of
Credits is in place.
The need of the hour is to invest heavily in research infrastructure
in the country to stop brain drain which has existed and thrived for
nearly half a century now.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Vice Chancellor, World University of
Design:
Design also opens the door to Research and Development (RandD),
particularly for MSMEs who with their limited resources can’t
include RandD in their business model.
The Government would do well to invest in research that promotes
deeper appreciation of the ‘steppingstones to RandD’ like design.

Private Public partnerships
The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly shown the importance of private
players especially in the current digitised education and learning
sectors. It is high time we leverage PPP to accelerate student
learning and teacher training processes.
Given the considerable expertise of the private sector in Edutech,
PPP models could be explored to execute such a mission.
This will set the foundation on which the effectiveness of teaching
and learning will improve and pave the path to democratise access
to education.
We need more PPP (public-private partnership) projects to ensure
that quality education content reaches each student and every
teacher in the country.

Avinash Kumar, Founder, Credenc:
Innovative Public Private bank partnership models where education
subsidy is complemented/accompanied with subsidy on finance can
help make this dream a reality.
While the above are the main factors that education
experts in India want to see form the Education Budget
2022, here are a few others:
● Mental health counselling to be made essential for students,
especially to battle the ill-effects of Covid-19
● Scientific career guidance in schools and institutions so that
both students and parents can understand the innumerable
new career options that have opened up
● GST reduction for book publishers and for digital devices that
would be used by students and teachers
● A strict oversight of the blooming edtech sector as many
companies are offering certifications with little to no value in
the market; prevention of courses being turned into
trends…Read More

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