Education and skilling get Budget push; high-power panel to look at education to employment pathways
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Budget documents show the allocation for the Union Education Ministry in FY 2026-27 has risen to about ₹1.39 lakh crore, an increase of 14.21% compared with the revised estimates for the current fiscal, with a majority of this increase being reflected in the allocation for the Department of School Education and Literacy, where the allocation for Atal Tinkering Labs saw a jump of ₹2,700 crore from ₹500 crore last year to ₹3,200 crore this year.
Increases were also seen in the allocations for the Samgara Shiksha scheme, which saw a rise of ₹4,100 crore in its allocation compared with the revised estimates for 2025-26, and in the allocation for the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, which has been given about ₹600 crore more when compared with the current fiscal’s revised estimates. The PM Poshan scheme also saw an increase of about ₹2,150 crore compared to 2025-26 revised estimates.
Further, the budget for the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship saw a significant jump in its allocation for the upcoming fiscal, with a Budget estimate of ₹9,885.80 crore, a 62% increase compared to the previous year’s Budget estimate. However, the Budget estimate (2025-26) of ₹6,100.10 crore had been revised to ₹2,703.54 crore by the current fiscal. A majority of the allocation for the Skills Ministry has been towards the PM Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded Industrial Training Institutes (SETU) scheme, launched in October 2025, which got an allocation of ₹6,081.80 crore.
Reacting to the Budget, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said it presented “bigger and bolder investments to strengthen education and future-ready skills”, even as Skill Development Minister and Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary called it a “transformative Budget” for the education and skills ecosystem.
In her Budget speech on Sunday, the Finance Minister also announced provisions to set up ‘Content Creator Labs’ across 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges to promote pathways in the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) sector, plans to set up another National Institute of Design for the promotion of design education in eastern India, and the reduction of Tax Collected at Source (TCS) from 5% to 2% for pursuing education abroad.
The reduction in TCS for pursuing education abroad would be a “relief” for students choosing to pursue higher studies outside the country, including post-doctoral research, Mr. Pradhan said.
In the Budget presented by Ms. Sitharaman on Sunday, the government has announced a High Powered Standing Committee meant to look at the pathways from education to employment and entrepreneurship, which will identify services sub-sectors with potential for growth; assess the impact of emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence on jobs and skills requirements; and propose “specific measures” for including AI in the education curricula from school onwards and upgrading State Councils for Educational Research and Training Institutes for teacher training.
Skills Minister Mr. Chaudhary said such a development showed that “we are investing in people and preparing India for the future of work”.
The Standing Committee will also identify “cross-sectoral policy and regulatory issues”, including standards-setting and accreditation, examine areas for services export, and propose steps to be taken to “attract skilled diaspora and foreign talent into the country”. The committee will also be looking at measures for “upskilling and re-skilling” of technology professionals and engineers in AI and emerging technologies, and will also propose measures for “AI-enabled matching of workers, jobs and training opportunities”.
The committee will also “propose measures to make the informal workflow visible, verifiable, and future-ready, to enhance upward mobility prospects”.
In a statement after the Budget was presented, the Education Minister thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Finance Minister for the proposed allocations to his Ministry’s sector, adding that the provision for setting up Content Creator Labs in the AVGC sector would open up higher secondary and secondary school students to exploring the possibilities of growth and employment in these domains.
The AVGC labs in schools and colleges will be supported by the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies in Mumbai, Ms. Sitharaman said in her Budget speech.
Mr. Pradhan, in his remarks on the Budget, also mentioned that the National Council for Education Research and Training, which had been accorded the status of deemed-to-be-university, had also seen a rise in its budget allocation, reflecting the body’s increasing importance in effectuating the vision of the National Education Policy, 2020.
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The five university townships that were being proposed would give rise to several universities, colleges, and institutes that would focus on research and innovation, Mr. Pradhan said in his statement.
The Education Minister also made a mention of the announcement to set up four telescope infrastructure facilities — the National Large Solar Telescope, the National Large Optical-infrared Telescope, the Himalayan Chandra Telescope, and the COSMOS-2 Planetarium, to be funded through the Department of Science and Technology. This would go a long way in promoting education in astrophysics and astronomy, Mr. Pradhan said.
Published – February 01, 2026 06:37 pm IST
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