Boost for education – 6,000 schools to be set up in XII Plan

The 2012-13 budget has something that will boost the education sector – it is proposed to set up 6,000 new schools across the country during the XII Five-Year Plan. This will give a fillip to education and take it to further corners of the country, covering a larger part of the population of schooling age. The proposal was announced by Union Minister for Finance Pranab Mukherjee during his budget speech for 2012-13 in the Parliament today. The schools will be set up over the XII Plan period, i.e. from 2012 to 2017, at the block level. These will be model schools to benchmark excellence. Of these, 2,500 will be through the public-private participation (PPP) model. We also welcome the increase of 24 per cent in the allocation for education, up to Rupees 52,057 crore. Another step is the hike of 40 per cent in the allocation for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to Rupees 15,000 crore.