Budget 2023: Finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman presented Union Budget of 2023-24 on 1 February. The budget came up with a lot of unexpected elements and it attacked directly on the education of the minority students.
The grant for education for Madrasa and minority education schemes has been reduced from Rs. 160 crore as per the Union Budget of 2022-23 to Rs. 10 crore in the 2023-24 Union Budget.
Are we really talking about inclusive education as envisaged under the National Education Policy?” asked HAQ Centre for Child Rights.
The child rights NGO also claimed that the drastic cut of 69.61% for pre-matric scholarships for minorities has increased worries for the education of minorities’ children.
The Ministry of Minority Affairs‘ budgetary allotment has been steadily declining since 2014.
The Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) programme will no longer be offered, and the pre-matriculation scholarship programme for members of underprivileged and minority communities will only be available to students in classes 9 and 10. The move made by the Narendra Modi government immediately sparked outrage among minority-community students, scholars, and professors.
Read: Union Budget 2023: What’s Cheaper and What’s Costlier?
