Three Centers of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in top educational institutions and 100 labs to develop applications using 5G services in engineering institutions to be set up, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Wednesday.
The finance minister made the announcement in his budget speech in the Lok Sabha, and announced the biggest ever budgetary allocation of Rs 1,12,899 crore to the education sector.
teachers through a research and development grant to one of the IITs for five years for innovative pedagogy, curriculum conduct, continuous professional development, dipstick survey, ICT implementation and indigenous production of laboratory grown diamond (LGD) seeds and machines Re-imagining training. Other major announcements for the education sector are the education budget for 2023-24, an increase of Rs 13,018 crore from the current financial year, with Rs 38,953 being the major national budget estimate. Education Mission.
However, the estimated expenditure on education by the Center will be 2.5 per cent of the total allocation, up from 2.6 per cent in 2021-22.
The budget allocation for school education has been increased by an overall increase of Rs 9752.07 crore (16.51 per cent) and for higher education by an amount of Rs 44,094.62 crore as against Rs 40,828.35 crore in the Revised Estimates 2022-23. of 8 percent.
To realize the vision of ‘Make AI in India’ and ‘Make AI work for India’, three Centers of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence will be set up in top educational institutions.
“Leading industry players will partner to conduct interdisciplinary research, develop cutting-edge applications and scalable problem solutions in the areas of agriculture, health and sustainable cities. This will spur an effective AI ecosystem and nurture quality human resources in the sector,” he said.
Sitharaman said that a total of 100 labs will be set up in engineering institutes in collaboration with various authorities, regulators, banks and other businesses to develop applications using 5G services.
“One hundred labs will be set up for development of applications using 5G services in engineering institutions to realize a new range of opportunities, business models and employment potential. The labs will cover applications such as smart classrooms, precision farming, intelligent transportation systems and healthcare applications, inter alia.”
The Finance Minister announced that to address the loss of learning during the pandemic years, a National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents will be set up, which will facilitate the availability of quality books across geographies, languages and genres.
“A National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents will be set up to facilitate the availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels, and device agnostic accessibility.
“States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries at panchayat and ward levels for them and provide infrastructure for access to national digital library resources,” he added.
To build a culture of reading, and to make up for the loss of learning during the pandemic, the National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust and other sources have been roped in to provide and replenish these physical libraries with non-curricular titles in regional languages and English would be encouraged. Sitharaman announced.
“Collaboration with NGOs working in literacy will also be a part of this initiative. To enhance financial literacy, financial sector regulators and organizations will be encouraged to provide age-appropriate reading material to these libraries,” she said.
He said 38,000 teachers and support staff would be recruited in the next three years for 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools serving 3.5 lakh tribal students.
Sitharaman also announced that teachers’ training will be re-imagined through innovative pedagogy, curriculum conduct, continuous professional development dipstick survey and ICT implementation.
“Teachers’ training will be reimagined through innovative pedagogy, curriculum conduct, continuous professional development, dipstick survey and ICT implementation. District Institutes of Education and Training will be developed as vibrant institutions of excellence for this purpose.
Noting that laboratory grown diamonds (LGD) is a technology and innovation and energy driven sector with high employability potential, Sitharaman said that to encourage indigenous production of such diamonds, a research grant to one of the IITs for five years Grant will be provided.
According to the Ministry of Education, an additional amount of Rs 4,235.74 crore, which is an increase of Rs 100 crore, has been given to the best institutions and universities of the country under the central government to implement the New Education Policy (NEP), 2020 in the true sense . 12.8 per cent more than their allocation in the last budget.
Funding for the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been increased by Rs 459 crore (9.37 pc). Grants to Central Universities have been increased by 17.66 per cent, Deemed Universities by 27 per cent, IITs by 14 per cent and NITs by 10.5 per cent as compared to BE 2022-23.
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