New Delhi: The Tamil Nadu budget for the financial year 2022-23, that was presented by finance minister PTR Palanivel Thiaga Rajan in the state Assembly on Friday, had a major focus on the education sector.
The school education department received the highest allocation of Rs 36,895.89 crore this year as compared to Rs 34,181 crore for the financial year 2021-22.
The government also announced a financial assistance of Rs 1,000 per month for girl students studying in its schools to encourage them to pursue higher education.
While presenting the budget, the finance minister said that over the next five years, all the government schools will be modernised with necessary infrastructure.
Rajan said that 18,000 new classrooms will be built and smart classrooms equipped with essential technologies will also be set up.
An amount of Rs 7,000 crore will be spent in the next five years for the development of smart classrooms with essential technologies, the minister said.
Book fairs would also be held across all districts and a high-level committee has been constituted for reviving libraries across the state, Rajan added.
Considering that the enrolment ratio of girl students from government schools in higher education is very low, Rajan said that the government has decided to pay an amount of Rs 1,000 every month to all the girl students, who studied from classes 6 to 12 in government schools, directly into their bank account till the uninterrupted completion of their undergraduate degree, diploma and IIT courses.
An amount of Rs 698 crore has been allocated for this new scheme that can benefit approximately 6,00,000 girls every year. The students will be eligible for this in addition to other scholarships, the finance minister said.
The government has also transformed the marriage assistance welfare scheme Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Memorial Marriage Assistance Scheme as the Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Higher Education Assurance Scheme for this purpose.
Apart from this, Rajan said in order to motivate government school students to aspire to join premier higher education institutions like Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Science and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the government has decided to bear the full cost of their undergraduate education.
"The students who have studied in government schools from classes 6 to 12 will be eligible to avail this assistance," news agency IANS quoted Rajan as saying.
According to Rajan, the existing schemes of EVR Maniammaiyar Memorial Widow's Daughter Marriage Assistance Scheme, Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy Memorial Inter-Caste Marriage Assistance Scheme, Annai Teresa Orphan Girls Marriage Assistance Scheme and Dr Dharmambal Ammaiyar Memorial Widow Remarriage Assistance Scheme will continue to be implemented without any change.
Also, in a bid to promote education in Tamil medium, school kits, including textbooks and notebooks, that are provided to students studying in government schools, will be extended to students of classes 1 to 10 in private unaided schools which teach exclusively in Tamil medium, at an estimated cost of Rs 15 crore from this year.