No reflection of election manifesto in education sector: CPD

Education budget has decreased as a share of the total proposed budget for the next fiscal year contrary to the Awami League’s election pledge, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has pointed out.

Education budget for this fiscal year was 12 percent of the total budget and now it has gone down to 11.7 percent for the next fiscal year.

Education outlay as a share of the GDP remained at 2.1 percent in FY20 which is considerably lower than the seventh five-year plan target of 2.8 percent and the Unesco target of 6 percent.

Meantime, implementation of the overall education budget in FY18 at 85.8 percent is the lowest in the last decade.

The CPD pointed out that the AL’s election manifesto had assured that “highest allocation for education will be given” and “proper utilisation of the education fund will be ensured”.

“It is sad that the finance minister did not clearly mention how much implementation has been achieved in the education sector as this is the last year of the seventh five-year plan,” said Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow at the CPD.

He pointed out that the primary education has seen a decrease in development growth rate from 20.81 percent in FY10 to 11.53 percent in FY20 and non-development expenditure from 12.55 percent to 4.36 percent.

Non-development expenditure has also decreased in secondary education from 18.60 percent in FY10 to 4.36 percent in FY20; development growth has, however, increased significantly from 11.32 percent to 65.08 percent.

The CPD also observed that inclusivity of the marginalised people has not been clearly reflected in the education budget.