Education-Budget 2024 Update: Paid Internships, Schemes to Benefit Women

Education-Budget 2024 Update: The central government will provide Rs 1.48 lakh crore for education and employment and skills, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced while presenting the Budget for the financial year 2024-25.

Financial assistance of loan up to Rs 10 lakh will be given to students for higher education in domestic institutions. A new centrally sponsored scheme for skill development will be implemented with the cooperation of state governments and industries. About 20 lakh youth will be skilled in a period of five years.

A total of 1,000 ITIs will be upgraded, and course content and design will be tailored to the skill requirements of industries. The Finance Minister further announced that the government will provide internships to one crore youth. These trainees will get a stipend of Rs 5000 and a lump sum assistance of Rs 6000. The companies will bear the cost from their CSR funds, the government’s internship scheme.

In the February edition of the Union Budget 2024, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had emphasized that the number of women in higher education institutions and STEM courses has increased over the last 10 years, adding that this is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

Unsurprisingly, UGC funding was reduced by 60.99%, resulting in a decline of Rs 2,500 crore from last year’s revised estimates of Rs 6,409 crore. On the other hand, grants to central universities saw an increase of over Rs 4,000 crore with Rs 15,928 crore allocated for the financial year 2024-25.

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