Budgeting for School Education in Bihar: What Has Changed and What Has Not?
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2018 Budgeting for School Education in Bihar: What Has Changed and What Has Not? Policy Brief Context Figure 1 describes the change in total revenue receipts of Bihar in the pre 14th FC (2014-15) The landscape of fiscal policy and budgetary period and first three years of 14th FC period processes in India has witnessed a number of (2015-16 to 2017-18 (BE)). changes over the last few years. The 14th Finance Commission (FC) recommended The figure confirms that after the 14th FC increasing the share of states in the divisible pool recommendations, the state actually benefitted of central taxes from the erstwhile 32 percent to in terms of generation of additional resources. 42 percent. On the other hand, the Union The total revenue receipt of Bihar increased in Government has pursued its fiscal consolidation the first two years of the 14th FC period as by compressing expenditure, mostly on Central compared to 2014-15 (A). However, there is a schemes in social sectors including school substantial drop in revenue receipts between education. It is obvious that the new fiscal 2016- 17 (RE) and 2017-18 (BE). This is mainly architecture will directly impact the public due to a decrease in grants-in-aid from Centre to provisioning of education at the state level. In statesbetween 2016-17 (RE) and 2017-18 (BE). In this changed fiscal space, this policy brief addition, the extent of change of the state's examines Bihar governments' policy response to share in Central taxes decreased in this period. school education and attempts to assess the Though there is increase in both state's own tax impact of the 14th FC recommendations on the and non-tax revenues, the increase took place at current level of public spending on school a decreasing rate (Figure 1). education and identify areas where more Whether state budget reflects improvement in resources need to be invested. prioritising school education in 14th FC period? Whether Bihar has been able to enhance their With the increased autonomy in setting resource envelope in the 14th FC period? spending priorities in the 14th FC period, Bihar The size of revenue receipt of a state indicates emerged as the state where there is an increase the amount of resource in a state’s exchequer. in both the total expenditure of the state, as well Revenue receipts comprise state’s own tax, as education expenditure. The extent of increase central tax devolution, non-tax revenue of the in the total state budget in comparison to the state government and grants received from increase in the school education budget shows Government of India. between 2014-15 (A) and 2017-18 (BE), while the state budget increased by 69 percent, the Figure 1: Change in resource envelope from expenditure on school education increased by 52 2014-15 (A) to 2017-18 (BE) (percent) percent (Figure 2a). This indicates the absence of 2014-15 (A) to 2015-16(A) budgetary priority for school education in Bihar 96 during the 14th FC period. This also shows the extent of increase in the elementary education 40 2333 23 21 3220 8 1015 9 11 2 budget at a decreasing rate compared to the secondary education budget which witnessed -4 increasing priority overtime (Figure 2b). Non-Tax Receipts State's Own from Centrefrom Grants-in-aid Central Taxes Central Total Revenue Total State's share in State's share State's Own Tax State's Own Source: Budget at a glance, State Budget documents for 2016-17 and 2017-18 1 Figure 2a: Extent of change in the total state Figure 3: Per Child and Per Student Spending on budget vis-à-vis change in allocation for school school education (Rs.) education (percent) Elementary Secondary School education School education budget 69.0 10986 State budget 51.9 9171 7920 37.4 7453 7460 25.4 6020 62035876 18.6 4871 5144 4864 11.2 9.0 3.7 3240 2014-15(A) to2015-16(A) to 2016-17 (RE)2014-15 (A) to 2015-16(A) 2016-17 (RE) to 2017-18 2017-18 (BE) (BE) 2014-15 (A) 2017-18 (BE) 2014-15 (A) 2016-17 (RE) Per child spending Per student spending Source: Detailed Demand for Grants, state budget documents for 2016-17 and 2017-18 Note: The enrolment data for 2017-18 was not Figure 2b: Extent of change in elementary available. Source: State Budget documents, education and secondary education (percent) projected population of 6-17 age group from MHRD portal and DISE data Elementary education A disaggregated picture of the per child spending 84.7 by level of education shows between 2014-15 50.5 and 2017-18, there is a 53 percent increase in 28.1 elementary education, 86 percent in secondary 18.920.3 17.119.9 8.1 education and 54 percent in school education (Figure 3). 2014-15(A) to2015-16(A) to 2016-17 (RE) 2014-15 (A) to 2015-16(A) 2016-17 (RE) to 2017-18 2017-18 (BE) Like per child spending, Bihar witnessed an (BE) absolute increase in per student spending in all levels of school education between 2014-15 (A) Source: Detailed Demand for Grants, state budget and 2016-17 (RE). An increase of 53 percent at documents for 2016-17 and 2017-18 elementary level, 77 percent at secondary level and 56 percent at school education is observed How much Bihar Government is spending on in Bihar. However, the marginal difference school education? between per child and per student spending at Per child and per student spending on school all levels of education can be attributed to two education indicates resource availability for each factors. First, there is not much increase in school going child and each school enrolled child school education budget in absolute terms. respectively. A comparison of both the indicators Second, higher dependence on public during the 13th and 14th FC period reveals firstly, provisioning of school education or lower an increase in both per child and per student privatisation in Bihar has kept the unit cost spending in the 14th FC year as compared to the unchanged. In this context, it is also important to 13th FC year. highlight that Kendriya Vidyalayas, considered to be ‘model’ government run schools in terms of 2 providing quality education, spent Rs.35,664 per exceeding 11 percent in the budget pie. Mid-Day student in 2016-17(RE) for school education, Meal (MDM) and other nutritional interventions, which was Rs. 32,263 in 2014-15(A). which is also an incentive for children to increase and retain enrolment occupies around 11 How Bihar is allocating its school education percent of school education budget. However, budget across different components? the components like teacher education, monitoring and evaluation are severely Figure 4: Component wise distribution of resource-starved. About 2.6 percent of school school education budget as % of state budget education budget in Bihar is recorded as grants 68.0 in aid (non-salary). It is difficult to understand where the money is getting spent from the budget documents of the state. What is the pattern of allocation and spending for teachers in Bihar? Is there any change in the 11.2 11.2 14th FC period? 4.0 1.0 1.3 0.0 0.7 2.6 Teachers are the fulcrum of the school education system. Professionally qualified teachers are a prerequisite for improving the quality of education. However, a common feature of the expenditure Infrastructure Indian education system is shortage of qualified Administartive Miscelleneous Incentives Office Expenses & Expenses Office teachers. Teacher Education Teacher Nutrition and MDMNutrition and Teacher Salary and Teacher incentives for teacher forincentives As per the minutes of the SSA Project Approval Monitoring & Evaluation & Monitoring Student Entitlement and Entitlement Student Grants in aid (Non-salary) in Grants aid Board (PAB) meeting, 203934 teacher posts are vacant in Bihar, which is 34.4 percent of the total Source: Detailed Demand for Grants, state budget sanctioned post. documents for 2017-18 At the upper primary level, there is a need not How does a state design its school education only for teachers but subject specific teachers budget? Is teacher salary appropriating with command over their respective subject allocations required for other components? The areas. However, In Bihar, there are 37 percent distribution of components of school education upper primary schools where subject teachers in the total school education budget of Bihar for are not available as per RTE and the problem is 2017-18 (BE) gives a holistic picture on how the more acute at secondary level. state is designing its school education budget. Figure 4 shows that teacher salary constitutes Figure 5: The pupil teacher ratio (PTR) for the largest share of the Bihar school education subject teachers at the secondary level budget. In the last few years, Bihar has taken several policy initiatives to make education more 1995 accessible and affordable to children. These initiatives have focused on reducing the ‘opportunity cost’ of schooling through 692 incentives like the Mukhyamantri Balak/Balika 610 Cycle Yojana, Mukhyamantri Poshak Yojana, Chief Minister Student Incentive Scheme, Girls Hostel, Scholarships for marginalised children. PTR-English PTR-Math PTR-Science This reflects in the incentive component 3 The third RMSA Joint Review Mission (JRM) on the other important component for quality highlighted the fact that shortage of science and education – teacher education. mathematics teachers had far reaching Section 23 of the RTE Act mandates that all implications in India. This included the present government school teachers should possess cohort of students not being able to acquire skills minimum qualifications laid down by the and competencies needed in these subjects.