Education budget analysis: A for allocation, B for being clueless, govt doesn’t know rest of the alphabets
Only 24% of the allocated amount for development schemes was spent.
For a rainy day? 0 is the amount of money spent on new higher education projects, despite a budgeted amount of Rs632 million. DESIGN: CREATIVE COMMON
KARACHI:
As the Sindh government will announce its budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year today, The Express Tribune analyses the use of the previous year’s education budget.
When the government presented its education budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year the amount earmarked for development projects was bumped up to Rs13.48 billion; a billion more than the previous year. However, official documents reveal that the government had spent a mere 24 per cent, or Rs3.2 billion to be exact, of the allocated amount till April.
With the actual development spending in the education sector falling woefully short of the budgeted amounts, the province has yet to witness the fruits of the government’s proclaimed ‘commitment to education’.
Elementary education
The 10-month expenditure on 17 ongoing and new schemes for the improvement of elementary education stood at a meagre 28 per cent, with only Rs381 million of the budgeted Rs1.3 billion being spent in the 2013-14 fiscal year.
To make matters worse, no money was spent on any new development schemes. For instance, the provincial education department’s much-hyped project of elevating primary schools across the province to the middle level, with an estimated cost of Rs5 billion, surfaced in the 2012-13 fiscal year. However, nothing has been done for past two years on the project.
The project to elevate primary girls’ schools to elementary level in rural Sindh also suffers the same fate. The Rs1.7 billion project awaits allocated funds to be released by the provincial finance department.
Teachers’ education
The government’s schemes for teachers’ education are perhaps the most neglected; till the month of April, the government had only spent four per cent of the allocated amount, a mere Rs7.5 million out of Rs187 million on seven ongoing and new projects.
The project through which the government promised to begin training of 6,000 school headmasters in three years, starting from 2013, is also just a part of a drawer full of files.
Higher education fares no better
The government had set aside Rs1.2 billion for 13 ongoing projects in the higher education sector. These projects, approved between 2008 and 2013, require an estimated Rs8 billion for their completion.
The analysis of the 10-month progress revealed that the government had managed to spend merely Rs551 million of the total allocated amount on these projects, a measly 43 per cent.
At least five of the 13 ongoing projects have had no money to expend till the month of April. These include the establishment of an ‘international standard’ modern library at the Quaid-e-Azam University of Engineering, Science and Technology in Nawabshah and a new campus of the Sindh University at the Ustad Bukhari Degree College in Dadu.
Moreover, the government had introduced 12 new higher education projects that were to have an estimated cost of Rs9 billion in its development budget. Out of the Rs9 billion, Rs632 million were set aside for the fiscal year, but as per the worrying trend of allocation to new projects, none of that amount was actually spent.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2014.
As the Sindh government will announce its budget for the 2014-15 fiscal year today, The Express Tribune analyses the use of the previous year’s education budget.
When the government presented its education budget for the 2013-14 fiscal year the amount earmarked for development projects was bumped up to Rs13.48 billion; a billion more than the previous year. However, official documents reveal that the government had spent a mere 24 per cent, or Rs3.2 billion to be exact, of the allocated amount till April.
With the actual development spending in the education sector falling woefully short of the budgeted amounts, the province has yet to witness the fruits of the government’s proclaimed ‘commitment to education’.
Elementary education
The 10-month expenditure on 17 ongoing and new schemes for the improvement of elementary education stood at a meagre 28 per cent, with only Rs381 million of the budgeted Rs1.3 billion being spent in the 2013-14 fiscal year.
To make matters worse, no money was spent on any new development schemes. For instance, the provincial education department’s much-hyped project of elevating primary schools across the province to the middle level, with an estimated cost of Rs5 billion, surfaced in the 2012-13 fiscal year. However, nothing has been done for past two years on the project.
The project to elevate primary girls’ schools to elementary level in rural Sindh also suffers the same fate. The Rs1.7 billion project awaits allocated funds to be released by the provincial finance department.
Teachers’ education
The government’s schemes for teachers’ education are perhaps the most neglected; till the month of April, the government had only spent four per cent of the allocated amount, a mere Rs7.5 million out of Rs187 million on seven ongoing and new projects.
The project through which the government promised to begin training of 6,000 school headmasters in three years, starting from 2013, is also just a part of a drawer full of files.
Higher education fares no better
The government had set aside Rs1.2 billion for 13 ongoing projects in the higher education sector. These projects, approved between 2008 and 2013, require an estimated Rs8 billion for their completion.
The analysis of the 10-month progress revealed that the government had managed to spend merely Rs551 million of the total allocated amount on these projects, a measly 43 per cent.
At least five of the 13 ongoing projects have had no money to expend till the month of April. These include the establishment of an ‘international standard’ modern library at the Quaid-e-Azam University of Engineering, Science and Technology in Nawabshah and a new campus of the Sindh University at the Ustad Bukhari Degree College in Dadu.
Moreover, the government had introduced 12 new higher education projects that were to have an estimated cost of Rs9 billion in its development budget. Out of the Rs9 billion, Rs632 million were set aside for the fiscal year, but as per the worrying trend of allocation to new projects, none of that amount was actually spent.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2014.