Delhi Budget 2019: EWS admissions saw 3-fold hike in private school admissions vs MCD schools

Delhi Outcome Budget 2019 was presented yesterday, i.e. on 25th February 2019 by Manish Sisodia, Deputy CM of Delhi’s incumbent AAP Government.

The Delhi government has shown a keen interest in upgrading the facilities in the government schools. (Image: PTI)

Delhi Budget 2019: Delhi Outcome Budget 2019 was presented yesterday, i.e. on 25th February 2019 by Manish Sisodia, Deputy CM of Delhi’s incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. The Delhi Budget 2019 was dubbed as pro-education budget as the education sector was assigned INR15,000 crore out of the total 60,000 Crore budget for the country’s capital. “At a time when the entire country on an average spends 15 per cent on education, Delhi’s spending is 26 per cent,” apprised Manish Sisodia who chairs the education department of Delhi. The Deputy CM, Delhi stated that the number of classrooms in the Delhi government schools has doubled while the number of students per class has reduced to 46. Sisodia shared data of Delhi EWS Admissions 2018-19, as per which, a total of 32,455 students got admissions under the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Disadvantaged Group (DG) category. Private unaided schools in the Delhi NCT have seen a three-fold hike in EWS Admissions as compared to MCD schools. An increase of 240% in EWS Admissions was witnessed for the current session over the last three years. “32,455 EWS/DG category students have been admitted to private unaided schools through online lottery under the RTE Act against 25,178 during 2017-18 and around 20,000 in 2016-17," stated Sisodia. The Delhi government observed that 76% seats in Delhi private unaided schools were filled in the year 2018, which is surprisingly three times more than the seats filled in the schools that come under the purview of Delhi’s Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). From the Delhi Outcome Budget 2019 for the education sector, approximately 9 Crore is proposed for digital learning schemes like giving tablets as a reward to students who score more than 80% in Class 10th besides providing tablets in schools for general use. The Delhi government has shown a keen interest in upgrading the facilities in the government schools of Delhi, apart from providing Spoken English classes to students and Special Training to teachers. The Aam Aadmi Party aims to open two new universities in the Capital.