The Minister of HRD Prakash Javadekar and the Chairman of the Finance Commission N K Singh chaired the 15th Finance Commission meeting with the Department of School Education and Literacy on February 13, 2019. The meet was attended by the members of the commission and senior officials from MHRD.
The topics which were discussed:
- Investment in school infrastructure
- Teachers’ salaries and training
- Career counselling
- School students
- Pre-schooling of children akin to the Sikkim model to give a boost to early learning
- Private partnership in schools
New courses discussed including integrating BA B Ed courses, B Com.B Ed courses to streamline the requirement of teachers.
Important topic that was discussed
The Commission expressed concern over parents’ preference to send children to private English schools over the government schools and stressed on the requirement for evaluation of schools and dissemination of the results to help parents in making informed choices.
The HRD has asked for support from 15th Finance Commission on the following issues:
1. Incentive based grants to states based on Performance Grading Index (PGI).
2. Requirement of Central funds amounting to a minimum of Rs.4,37,994.74 crore (to meet RTE Norms and other essential requirements) and Rs.5,66,087.74 crore to meet the SDG Goals by 2030.
3. Ring fencing (of about 20 per cent) of resources devolved to the states for school education or clear award for states and UTs for implementation of RTE Act, 2009 and other essential requirements (on the lines of 13th Finance Commission).
4. The Commission is scheduled to hold its second meeting with MHRD on 22nd February to deliberate on the issues of higher education.
Courtesy: India Today
