Learning steps

• Budget 2025 promises higher education allocations compared to last year’s revised estimates.

• Higher education saw a 7% increase, but actual expenditure for 2023-24 was 10% more than 2025-26 Budget estimates.

• The ASER 2024 report highlighted gaps in India’s school education system, particularly in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN).

• Despite learning losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, India still has some way to go before achieving full FLN, the 2026-27 target under the NIPUN Bharat scheme.

• School education has been allocated an additional ₹11,000 crore, a 16% increase from the 2024-25 revised estimates.

• The National Education Policy (NEP) proposes a 5+3+3+4 system, including five years of early education up to Class 3.

• A focused FLN drive is pivotal to achieving full FLN, a prerequisite for building a highly skilled workforce and leveraging India’s demographic dividend.