Union Budget: Allocate funds to implement NEP, bridge the digital divide in classrooms

Beyond additional funding, the following areas also require consideration and financial support:

Teachers are the pivot of school education. Recommendations under the NEP regarding B.Ed. colleges need to be implemented in letter and spirit to address fraudulent colleges that indulge in malpractices. Recruitment of government teachers requires drastic improvement. Focus has to be on teacher training and capacity building. This can be achieved by investing significantly in teacher training programmes, including continuous professional development, to ensure the adoption of modern pedagogical practices, especially in STEM, digital literacy, languages, and soft skills. This is critical for realizing the long-term aims of school reforms. There is also a need to encourage public-private partnerships (PPPs) and collaborations with NGOs/private entities to improve the quality of teaching, bring in specialised instructors (for labs, vocational skills, digital learning).

Bridging the digital divide and bringing tech into classrooms is the need of the hour. This can be achieved by ensuring that every government school — including those in rural and semi-urban areas — has reliable broadband, computer access, and digital infrastructure. This supports online learning, hybrid models, and access to educational resources. There is also a need to expand and strengthen initiatives such as Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) — which give students hands-on exposure to science, technology, engineering, and innovation — especially in government schools. There are proposals to widely extend ATLs. Promoting e-learning, AI-assisted teaching tools, digital libraries, and multilingual digital content is essential to support inclusivity, especially for remote or under-resourced areas.

Expanding vocational and skilling infrastructure is imperative, and skilling must be made both aspirational and accessible. This requires establishing dedicated, high-quality institutions such as National Centres of Excellence for Skilling (NCE-Skilling), which align training with industry needs (both technical and soft skills), globally competitive standards, and future-oriented sectors such as technology, manufacturing, services, and green energy. Facilitating vocational education by upgrading institutions like industrial training institutes (ITIs), creating more courses, and building bridges with employers for internships and apprenticeships will make vocational training a mainstream, respected alternative to purely academic routes—going a long way in addressing the issues that afflict this sector. Additionally, encouraging linkages between skilling institutions and industries (private sector; micro, small and medium enterprises or MSMEs; and startups) is essential so that training leads to real employment, thereby reducing the skill-job mismatch. Promoting innovation, research, and future-ready skills—including AI, digital literacy, language proficiency, and soft skills—is crucial. This involves incorporating AI, data science, digital literacy, and multilingual education (including regional languages) into school and higher-education curricula to prepare students for the changing global job market. Recent proposals have included funding for AI in education, digital textbooks in Indian languages, and bridging language-based divides. Additionally, setting up specialized labs and centres (robotics labs, astronomy labs, science and innovation hubs) even at the school or vocational-training level will encourage scientific temperament, creativity, problem-solving, and an innovation mindset.

Focus on equity, inclusion, and access — especially for rural, marginalised, and economically weaker populations. Ensure education and skilling programmes are inclusive — covering rural areas, socially or economically disadvantaged groups (SC/ST/OBC/low-income), girls, and persons with disabilities. Provide subsidized or low-interest educational/skill-training loans/grants so that financial barriers do not prevent access to higher education or vocational training. Such support was part of earlier budgets. Strengthen school-to-skill/talent pipelines — ensuring students from underprivileged backgrounds get exposure to vocational training, internships/apprenticeships, and employment assistance.

Encouraging public-private partnerships (PPPs) and industry-academia collaboration is vital. This involves working with the private sector, industry bodies, MSMEs, startups, NGOs, and educational-technology providers to design curricula, training modules, apprenticeships, internships, and placement pipelines. Leveraging corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds from companies to support skilling, internships, and training costs—especially in sectors with manpower shortages such as manufacturing, AI/tech, services, and green energy—makes skilling scalable and demand-driven. Earlier programs have had similar frameworks, demonstrating the viability of this approach.

Anil Swarup is former secretary, school education, Goverment of India.