While presenting the Union Budget 2021-22, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an allocation of INR 35,219 crore for the post-matric scholarship scheme for 4 crore Scheduled Caste (SC) students till 2025-26.
While talking about the same in her speech, FM Nirmala Sitharaman said, “We have revamped the post matric scholarship scheme for the welfare of Scheduled Caste students. I have also enhanced the central assistance in this regard. We are allowing Rs. 35,219 crore for 6 years till 2026 to help 4 crore SC students.” Smt. Sitharaman also specified that post-matric scheme has been instrumental in the upliftment of school students from the historically backward community.
Union Budget 2021 – Other Announcements on Education
While presenting a paperless Union Budget 2021, a first-time phenomenon in India’s budget-presenting history, the Union Finance Minister gave emphasis to effective implementation of New Education Policy 2020. Keeping the same as priority, she announced the plan to:
- Set up 100 new Sainik schools, in partnership with NGOs, private schools and states.
- Set up 750 ‘Eklavya residential model schools in our tribal areas”. Unit cost to be increased from Rs 20 crores to Rs 38 crores, and for hilly and difficult areas to Rs 48 crores.
- Open a central University in Leh for “accessible higher education in Ladakh”
- Develop a total of 15,552 schools as ‘Adarsh Vidhyalayas’ as a component of ‘Samagra Shiksha’. As mentioned on the Ministry of Education’s Twitter handle – The aim of the Adarsh Vishyalaya Yojna will be to prepare one primary and one elementary school in each block, and one secondary and one senior secondary school in each district as schools of excellence.
- Set up a Higher Education Commission for the accreditation and regular funding of colleges and universities. FM states that this way, institutes will have a better synergy.
Other policies under NEP that will be considered by the government can be found in Annexure 5.
The government renews its focus on reinvigorating the country’s human capital through the Budget 2021-22 announcements on higher education. #AatmanirbharBharatKaBudget (2/2) pic.twitter.com/BuobTO25kw
— NSitharamanOffice (@nsitharamanoffc) February 1, 2021
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