Government plans to spend Rs 28,671.50 crore on education during the current financial year, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Daggubati Purandareswari told Rajya Sabha on Monday. Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, she said the XIth Plan would focus on giving vocational education to school dropouts and those who could not be brought under conventional education stream. "Vocational education will be taken up on mission mode," the Minister said adding the Xth Five Year Plan had focused on primary education.
As against allocation of Rs 28,671.50 crore in 2007-08, Rs 8258.08 crore were spent during April-September, she said while acknowledging that spending on education was no where near the targeted six per cent of GDP. Central Government's spending on education had increased from 0.52 per cent of GDP in 1995-96 to 0.89 per cent of GDP in 2005-06, she said.The Minister said states had seen drop in education spending - from 3.57 per cent of GDP in 2001-02 to 2.77 per cent of GDP in 2005-06. "States will also have to increase their share." Purandareswari said Government planned to upgrade 15,000 upper primary schools to secondary schools and increase intake capacity in existing 44,000 secondary schools. Accessibility has been a priority with the government," she said.
Source:- http://www.headlinesindia.com/archive_html/03December2007_64820.html