The latest Economic Survey, the document on the state of the economy, presented a dismal picture of education spending by the Union and state governments and offered vocational studies with community support as the way forward to train human resource.

The Economic Survey of 2023-24 tabled in Parliament on Monday suggested that expenditure on education in terms of its share in GDP, its share in total expenditure by Union and state governments together and its share in total expenditure on social services have declined compared to the pre-Covid-19 year 2019-20.

The expenditure on education by the Union and state governments together was 2.9 per cent of the GDP in 2010-20. It has declined to 2.7 in 2023-24, according to the budgetary estimates. The expenditure on education with respect to the total spending on social services also declined from 10.7 per cent to 9.2 per cent in this period.

Educationists fear an increased involvement of private entities in the education sector in the years to come, resulting in a commensurate increase in denial of access to education to the poor and socially deprived sections such as the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

The Survey report said India had 26.52 crore students in schools, 4.33 crore in higher education and more than 11 crore learners in skilling institutions. It mentioned the National Credit Framework (NCrF), announced under the National Education Policy (NEP) in April 2023, which aims at facilitating seamless mobility of learners from purely academic to vocational training and vice versa.

In the "way forward" section, the Survey indicates an increased focus on vocational education and training with the help of local people.

“To operationalise vocational education across the learning ladder, the model of Lend A Hand India (Lahi), an NGO, is a good example. The Lahi model includes civil society’s collaboration with the governments to introduce vocational education as a core curriculum component, establish labs, recruit and train vocational trainers, organise internships and offer placement support,” it said.

Atul Sood, a professor at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the declining trend of public spending on education would harm students from the disadvantaged sections.

“The gross budgetary support for education has remained less than 3 per cent of the GDP. The government is not spending on education. The privatisation of education has already increased. Going this way, privatisation will further expand. Those who have money will be able to study and those who don't will be pushed out of education,” Sood told reporters at a press conference organised by the Federation of Central Universities Teachers Associations.