Parliament Question: Expenditure on Education in terms of percentage of GDP

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 2642 ANSWERED ON 09.03.2026 Expenditure on Education in terms of percentage of GDP 2642. Shri Anurag Sharma: Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state: (a) the details of the current public expenditure on education in terms of percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country; (b) whether the Government has worked out any plan on the feasibility of achieving the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 target of 6 per cent and the financial strategy to bridge the gap, if any and if so, the details thereof; and (c) the details of the annual requirement for digital infrastructure in Government schools across the country and the extent to which the current allocation meet this need? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (DR. SUKANTA MAJUMDAR) (a): As per “Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, 2022-23”, public expenditure on education (Central and States/UTs) as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is 4.06%. (b): Education being in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, increasing expenditure in education is the responsibility of the Central and States Governments. The Centre and States are working together to increase the public investment in education sector to reach 6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the earliest. Several initiatives have been taken by the Government of India including consistent increase in Budget Allocation of the Ministry of Education from Rs.93,224.31 crore in F.Y. 2021-22 to Rs. 1,39,289.48 crore in 2026-27(an increase of 49.4% in 5 years). (c): As education is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, majority of the schools are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments. Under Samagra Shiksha, financial assistance is provided to States/UTs, including rural, tribal and economically backward areas, inter-alia for setting up of ICT labs and Smart Classrooms in Government and Government Aided Schools having classes VI to XII. Till date 1,79,153 ICT Labs and 1,76,738 Smart Classrooms have been sanctioned to State/UT Governments. Based on the UDISE+ data and funds approved in Project Approval Board‟s (PAB) meetings to States/UTs for the year 2025-26, gaps were identified in saturating ICT Labs and Smart Classrooms in Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools in States/UTs. To address this gap, 22,618 ICT Labs and 29,920 Smart Classrooms in States/UTs were approved for thesaturation of these facilities in the year 2025-26. Further, to saturate all functional Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) 3,564 ICT Labs and 3,655 Smart Classrooms were approved in the year 2024-25. The year wise details of funds allocated in the last four years (i.e. from 2021-22 to 2024-25) for ICT Labs and Smart Classrooms in Government and Government-aided schools is as under: (Rs. in lakh) Financial Year ICT Labs Smart Classrooms 2021-22 68,456 91,093 2022-23 41,824 73,823 2023-24 55,904 53,730 2024-25 54,372 59,519 The Government of India, in the Budget 2025-26, has announced provision of broadband connectivity to all Government Secondary Schools in rural areas, under the „BharatNet‟ project to enhance digital infrastructure in remote areas by BSNL. To achieve the objectives of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and to bridge the digital divide in education, a comprehensive initiative called PM eVidya was initiated as part of „Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan‟ on 17th May, 2020, which unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education across the country under the aegis of NEP 2020. States/UTs collaborate with NCERT to utilise, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives as per their requirements in mother tongue/local/regional languages. PM eVidya includes 200 DTH TV Channels allotted to States/UTs/Autonomous Bodies (ABs)/Other Ministries in Government of India and 400 Radio channels to enable them to provide supplementary education as per their requirement in various Indian languages for classes 1-12. Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) is the Nation‟s One Nation, One Digital platform for providing quality e-content for school education including Government schools in States/UTs along with QR coded Energised Textbooks (ETBs) for all grades. States/UTs/Abs have generated and contributed over 3.7 lakh content in mother local/regional languages enabling multilingualism. DIKSHA Offline supports areas with limited or no internet connectivity. The stakeholders have access to more than 450 Virtual Labs and 100 Virtual skill labs on DIKSHA. *****