Chennai: Amid the ongoing debate over the allocation for the school education department in Tamil Nadu, PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss said the overall allocation for the education sector has fallen to one-third of its level over the past 25 years.In a statement on Saturday, Anbumani condemned the additional allocation of funds for unnecessary govt expenditures and the reduction in funding for education. The education commission, constituted in 1964 and headed by D S Kothari, recommended reforms in India’s education sector and submitted its report in 1966. It recommended that education expenditure reach 6% of the country’s GDP within the next 20 years.“At that time, govt expenditure on education in India was around 3% of GDP, while Tamil Nadu’s expenditure was slightly higher. It has been 60 years since the Kothari Commission submitted its report, yet the target set for govt spending on education has still not been achieved. On the contrary, govt expenditure on education has been declining year after year. In Tamil Nadu, which is widely regarded as a leading state in education, the allocation for education has fallen to an unimaginable extent,” said Anbumani.The allocation for education, which stood at 3.92% in 2000, has now fallen to 1.3%, approximately one-third lower than the earlier level. If the same 3.92% of the state’s economic output had been allocated to education this year as it was 25 years ago, the education sector would have received ₹1.59 crore, he said.
