Karnataka Budget 2023: 8,000 new classrooms; mid-day meal expansion; common PhD counselling

NEW DELHI : Chief minister Siddaramaiah during the Karnataka Budget 2023 speech, announced that the state has allocated Rs 550 crore to the construction of over 8,000 classrooms in schools and pre-universities. The chief minister also said that there will be common counselling for PhD for all government university seats and 40% private universities seats.

He also announced that the state will come up with a new education policy in place of the National Education Policy(NEP) 2020, and that measures will be taken to drop “antithetical concepts” that were introduced in textbooks by the previous government.

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah announced a budget of Rs 310 crore for new classrooms in schools and Rs 240 crore for classrooms in pre-university colleges.

This was the new Congress government’s first budget in Karnataka since winning the election in 2023.

Karnataka Education Budget: Mid-day meals, toilets

Siddaramaiah said that a grant of Rs 20,000–45,000 will be provided to each government primary and secondary school for maintenance and upkeep of the buildings. Rs 153 crore will be allocated for this in the Karnataka Budget 2023-24. In the Karnataka Budget, Rs 100 crore has been set aside for repairing dilapidated and rain-damaged buildings in 3,833 schools and 724 pre-university colleges.

Plus, new toilet complexes will be constructed in 5,775 schools and 150 colleges, in proportion with student’s strength.

The chief minister announced that Karnataka’s supplementary nutrition programme will be extended to include students from Classes 9 and 10 as well.

“Students studying in Classes 1 to 8 in government and aided schools are being given egg or peanut chikki or banana once a week as supplementary nutrition. Now, it will be given twice a week. From the current year, this program will also be extended to students studying in Classes 9 and 10, covering a total of around 60 lakh students in the state. For this, a total of Rs 280 crore will be allotted in the budget,” the minister said.

In the Karnataka Budget, Rs 80 crore has been allocated for launching ‘Kalika Balavardhane’ programme for addressing learning deficiencies in children.

Karnataka State Budget: Textbooks

The minister also said that the concepts introduced by previous governments will be dropped from this year’s textbooks.

“Education should impart the values of fraternity, harmony and coexistence in children. The previous government had introduced certain concepts in the text books which were antithetical to these value systems. Measures will be taken in the current year to drop such content from the textbooks,” said Siddaramaiah during his Budget speech.

In 2020, the BJP government had set up a textbook revision committee to introduce changes in the school textbooks in Karnataka. The committee had then introduced revisions in many chapters including portions on historical figures such as Tipu Sultan.

Budget Karnataka 2023: NEP 2020 ‘incompatible’

Chief minister Siddaramaiah also announced a common counselling process for PhD seats of all government universities and 40% of seats under private universities to “bring uniformity in the process of filling up of PhD. seats in all the universities of the state” .

The minister also said that widely-used reference books and syllabus will be translated into Kannada to help students eliminate language barriers in pursuing higher education.

During his Budget speech, Siddaramaiah also said that Karnataka will be forming its own education policy as the NEP 2020 is “incompatible” with the state. The previous Karnataka government had framed a set of position papers on NEP 2020 that will now likely be junked.

“The National Education Policy implemented by the Central government is incompatible with the federal system of governance. It has several anomalies which undermine the constitution and democracy. A Uniform Education System does not suit a nation like India which has diverse religions, languages and cultures. A New Education Policy will be formulated keeping in mind the local social, cultural and economic milieu of the state,” said Siddaramaiah.

It was also announced that the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences will establish a new medical college in Kanakapura taluk of Ramanagara district. The Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) , Bengaluru, has been allocated a grant of Rs 25 crore for building infrastructure.